Waiting By the Shore: An Iliad Fan Fiction
by Osheen Nevoy
Summary: The days and nights after the death of Patroklos in the Trojan War are told here from Patroklos' point of view. Patroklos discovers some of the mysteries of the Underworld-with the help of an unusual friendship he develops with Charon the ferryman-and fights for the chance to be reunited with his beloved Achilleus.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note_

I have been in love with the character of Patroclus in the _Iliad_ , and his relationship with Achilles, ever since those long ago days when I first read the _Iliad_ for Western Civ in my freshman year at college. I wanted to write fan fiction about them even then, but it took over twenty years before this story-a novella, I suppose-finally crystallized.

The final impetus to make me write this work came six years ago, while my grandmother was going through her final decline at the age of 99 years. In those last weeks as she was dying, I wrote this. I don't know how she would feel about being connected with a tale of the romance of two men, but I hope she would not object. So I dedicate this work to her memory. Her final voyage out of life helped shape my thoughts in this work, exploring the entwining and mingling of death and life.

Since the edition of the _Iliad_ that I read was Richard Lattimore's translation, I use his spellings of the names: for example, Patroklos and Achilleus. I should warn all potential readers that this first chapter (or "Book," as I'm calling it, harking back to the _Iliad_ ) includes semi-explicit reminiscences of sex involving the story's heroes. If the idea of a sexual romance between two men offends you, it would be better for you not to read this tale.

 _Waiting by the Shore_

 _An Iliad Fan Fiction_

Book I

Cold.

I have never been so horribly, damnably cold.

I suppose that is no surprise. I have never been dead before, either.

I jolted to consciousness to find myself on my knees. I had one hand pressed to the ground, as though I had fallen and was in the midst of shoving myself to my feet.

Instead of following through on that action, I frowned and looked about me, striving to gain some idea of my condition and surroundings.

The cold, deep and searing, was almost all that I felt. Almost, for when I concentrated hard I could feel crumbling, grassless soil under my fingers and the solidity of ground beneath my knees.

I had no doubt that I was dead. Only too clearly I remembered my brief, dazzling glimpse of Phoibos Apollo as he struck the armor from my body. I remembered the thudding sound and the shock as a spear point lodged between my shoulder blades. I remembered the strange wet slurping noise as Prince Hektor's spear caught me in the gut and drove through, and the soul-wrenching anguish that followed.

Cautiously I got to my feet, trying to judge if my death left any mark upon me. There seemed to be no wound now—though with the numbing cold, I thought I could almost thrust my hand into that gaping gut wound and never feel it.

I seemed to be wearing one of my tunics, and my feet were bare. I was clothed as if I were sitting on the beach with Achilleus—instead of standing here, torn from the world and from Achilleus' arms.

Grief welled up as I thought of all my death meant for me. But I told myself I could not take the time to think of it. More pressing by far was the need to determine where I was now, and what I had to do next.

Heavy, dark grey fog swirled all about me. Tendrils of it seemed to brush at my skin. When I looked at the places the fog touched, they somehow seemed even colder than the rest of me.

I wondered if the cold came from the fog, from me, or from both.

The fog was so thick I could see barely an arm's reach in any direction. I supposed I must be in daylight, or I would not be able to see the fog so clearly. But I saw no break in the grey pall. Nowhere did any light pierce through.

I thought, _I can't just keep standing here waiting for something to happen._

There seemed no reason to walk in one direction rather than any other. So I simply started walking in the same direction I'd been facing.

To have some way of keeping track of how far I walked, I decided I would count my steps.

I had walked two hundred and eighteen paces, when the ground started to change.

Directly ahead of me, it was unaltered, with the same featureless flatness I'd walked on for those two hundred and eighteen steps. But just to my left, the ground started to slope down.

 _If the stories I've always heard are right,_ I thought, _I'm going to need to cross a river._

It struck me that the stories _ought_ to be right. After all, Achilleus' mother is a goddess. She ought to know about these things. If there was something different we needed to do when we got to the Underworld, wouldn't she have told us?

I had no way of knowing if I was anywhere near the river. But if I was, it made sense for the riverbank to be at the base of a slope. So I veered off to the left, and continued my walk in the fog.

The ground continued gently but steadily downward. Six hundred and twenty three steps from where I'd started my little stroll, the water came into view.

It definitely seemed to be a river. Sluggish and flat, unmarked by islets or rocks or even a water-worn log, it seemed a liquid version of the ground I'd been walking on. Only when I stood at the very edge could I see that the water was moving. I crouched down to study it and saw grains of the dark, sandy soil being caught up by the water and floating with ponderous slowness away to my left. I guessed, then, that direction led down river, although in this place I suppose there is no reason for the rules of our world to hold true.

The fog, I noticed, did not continue over the water. It seemed to hold back, almost hesitatingly, a foot or two from the river's edge. But this break in the fog did not reveal to me much more of my surroundings. In either direction the view was the same—the long, flat road of dark water, without the smallest pebble, twig or animal burrow to serve as a landmark. Above, stretched what seemed to be a grey sky: dull, but at least a lighter grey than the damnable fog. And I could see no trace of the opposite shore. Farther out into the current—or what I supposed was the current, though I could not see it moving—the water looked a gleaming black. It seemed to blend into an equally black sky, but I could not see where water ended and sky began.

At a sudden thought, I got to my feet again and took a hasty step backward.

I have always heard that one of the rivers of Hades holds waters of forgetfulness, and that those who drink of it lose all memory of their life in the world. This might not be that river, but I did not want to take any chances. I grimaced down at my feet and gingerly raised one from the damp sand that I could scarcely feel.

I thought, _If this is the River of Forgetfulness, apparently its powers are not strong enough to act on me through wet sand._

The question now became what to do next.

I could, of course, just sit by the river and wait, but that notion had no appeal. If I sat, I was certain to begin thinking.

 _Keep walking, then,_ I thought. And maybe, although I held small hope of it, if I kept walking the exercise might finally warm me up.

One direction was as good as another, I supposed, so I turned to the left and started to walk downstream.

I don't know how long I had spent walking along the unchanging shore before I realized that I'd forgotten to keep count.

I stopped in my tracks and cursed aloud.

 _This is splendid, Patroklos,_ I raged at myself, _this is magnificent! Where's the damned good of knowing you walked six hundred and twenty three paces to the riverbank from the place where you woke, to the riverbank, if you don't have the faintest idea of how far you've walked along the river?_

I turned to look behind me. Even though I knew what I would see, I was disheartened to realize that the vista behind me was exactly the same as that before. I hadn't even left any footprints. I assured myself that was because the sand wasn't wet enough. It was _not_ that the dead leave no footprints. To prove that to myself, I dug at the sand with one of my toes, and was ridiculously relieved when I saw that my toe did make a dent in the sand.

I was starting to think it had been a mistake to start walking along the shoreline. Perhaps I should simply have sat down where I had reached the river, maddening though that inactivity sounded.

Naturally, I was making this up as I went along. I had no way of knowing how close my thoughts might be to reality. But I thought there was at least a chance that I'd arrived where I had for a reason. Perhaps all souls arrive in the Underworld at around the same place. It hadn't been far to walk to the river—six hundred and twenty three steps, as I knew with annoyingly useless precision. So perhaps the spot where I'd reached the river was important. Perhaps the ferry boat would be arriving there, or somewhere near there. But to me the wretched spot was unrecognizable, identical to every other stretch of this cursed shore.

I told myself that I would compromise. I would walk a ways farther and then turn back. I might not know how many damned steps I'd walked, but I could probably manage to remain in about the same stretch of shoreline. If I just kept trooping up and down this same miserable bit of shore, I should be able to catch sight of any ferryboat eventually. If there was any ferryboat to see.

 _And this time,_ I ordered myself, _you are damn well going to remember to count._

I carved an "x" in the sand with my toe before I started walking again. To give these ludicrous efforts some sort of arbitrary structure, I walked down river for a total of two thousand, three hundred and seventy two steps – two steps for each of our ships that had sailed to Troy. I then turned around and walked the same number of steps again—and was absurdly happy to see that I indeed came to a stop quite near my "x" in the sand.

I had to have something to do, so I kept on walking for another two thousand, three hundred seventy two steps. The point where I stopped then, I decided to designate as an arbitrary center point for these patrols of mine, regardless of how far it might actually be from the place where I'd first seen the river. I crouched down and drew another, larger "x" in the sand there, so I could find this place again if I lost count. Then I started walking in the other direction, upriver. With the first step, I launched yet again into counting, resolving to walk in this direction until I reached four times the number of our fleet of ten years ago. I felt more than half a fool. But this was all I could think of to do, apart from sitting down and probably starting to cry.

By focusing on the numbers with grim desperation, I caught myself a few times when I almost lost count. Several times I had to stop and just stand where I was, repeating the right number to myself until I'd fought back the thoughts that were stabbing at my mind.

 _Do not think,_ I ordered myself. _You are not going to think. You are not going to think about what has happened to you. You are not going to think about everything you have lost._

 _You are not going to think. You are only going to count._

The landscape for those four thousand, seven hundred and forty four steps upriver was fully as featureless as everything else I had seen here. On reaching that random magic number I turned around with a gloomily irritated sigh and walked four thousand, seven hundred and forty four paces back again.

It was a very small satisfaction to me to see that I'd been keeping the length of my paces relatively consistent. When I came to the end of that four thousand, seven hundred and forty four, I was within a few arm's reaches of my large "x."

I would be surprised if any of the gods know how many times I trudged up and down that same stretch of river, counting out four thousand, seven hundred and forty four steps. Certainly I don't know it. If any of them do know, I am sure that they do not care.

The light and the weather, if one can call it that, were as unchanging as the landscape. Up and down that shoreline I walked, and still the same grey fog swirled; the same grey sky held sway above me. The same seemingly black sky brooded in the distance across the water.

At some point I remember wondering if this would be all there was to the afterlife, just walking up and down between the river and the fog.

I argued with myself again that this _couldn't_ be all there was. If this were all we could expect, wouldn't Thetis have warned us?

But no, I thought then, maybe she wouldn't have. Maybe she didn't want to discourage us.

I was starting to wonder if I should give up and just sit down, when I saw a light on the water.

I forgot all about wherever I was in that damned four thousand, seven hundred and forty four.

The light was a little ways out on the river yet, but it definitely seemed to be drawing closer to this shore. As I watched it I saw that it seemed to be heading for a spot a couple of spear's throws ahead of me.

I managed to hold myself back from breaking into a run. Still, I certainly quickened my pace as I walked toward that spot.

Whether by coincidence or not that spot was only about one spear's throw beyond my big "x" in the sand.

I stopped at the place for which the vessel seemed to be aiming. Striving to maintain some sort of calm, I waited.

I could see now that the vessel was a large but fairly ordinary-looking ferryboat. It was perhaps more raft than boat, flat and shallow-drafted. The light, I saw, came from a long torch bound to the railing at the forward corner of the raft. The ferry seemed empty save for one lone figure: the ferryman, poling his vessel across the river with what seemed like more than human speed.

I was starting to think there was something very strange about all of this.

I asked myself, _Where_ is _everyone?_

I wasn't going to believe that I was the only person in the world who had died recently. Come to that, I knew that I was not.

Even accepting the unlikely possibility that no one else across the entire world had recently met their death, plenty of men had died in the same battle with me. No small number of those were men whom I had killed.

 _So where are all of them?_

The ferry swiftly drew near enough for me to discern the appearance of its master.

The fellow was of medium height but a burly build, with a barrel of a chest and shoulders the size of beef haunches. He looked more or less like an ordinary ferryman. He wore a conical cap and a red-brown tunic the color of a spear blade left to rust with the blood still caked on it. As the ferry crossed the last few feet toward the shore, I saw he had a short, spiky black beard that looked the consistency of a boar's bristles.

Ordinary ferryman he might seem, but his eyes were undeniably those of a god. Icy and as pitiless as lightning, they gleamed with that same discomforting brilliance that often shines in Achilleus' eyes.

With one last enormous heave of his pole, the ferryman drove the boat up onto the beach right in front of me. I had to leap aside to avoid being run over. He walked to the front of the vessel and posted himself there glowering. On his arms he cradled the gigantic pole which was as thick as my forearm and twice as tall as I was. He seemed to be entirely ignoring me. Being ignored was all the more aggravating to me since I was the only person there.

 _This is what you've been waiting for,_ I thought, prodding myself out of staring in offended astonishment.

I strode onto the boat—and immediately had to jump back again, as the ferryman took a swipe at me with that massive pole.

"Back, shade!" he snarled disdainfully. "How many times do I have to tell you people? Passage is not for the likes of you!"

For another instant I just stared. Then I planted myself in front of the ferryman, challengingly stepping once more onto his wretched boat. "You have never told me before," I snapped. "I just got here. And it wouldn't kill you to show a little courtesy."

He gave a short bark of a laugh. "Interesting choice of words, little shade! No, you're right on that, it wouldn't kill me. Newcomer, eh?" he went on, eyeing me with an expression that said he was very far from impressed. "Right, then, I'll tell you once. No funeral, no passage. If no one can be bothered to give you your funeral rites, then you don't get on this boat."

Stung by his attitude, and stung even more by the implication of his words, I grabbed hold of the ferryman's pole. Unsurprisingly, it didn't budge from his grasp. But I kept my hold on it anyway and announced, "I am Patroklos son of Menoitios, second-in-command of the Myrmidons and companion to swift-footed Achilleus, and you need to learn to keep a civil tongue in your head!"

With seemingly the smallest effort, the ferryman shoved on his pole, hurling me backwards. I went flying at least the distance of my own height, to land on my ass in the sand.

"I am Charon, Ferryman of Acheron," he declared. He added in mockery, "And it will not be you who teaches me to keep a civil tongue, O second-in-command and companion. If you're so important, why doesn't swift-footed Achilleus give you your burning?"

Charon turned his head slowly so that his glare raked along the shore. Brandishing the huge ferry pole in one hand, he repeated his ultimatum: "No funeral, no passage!"

I scrambled to my feet, involuntarily shuddering as I realized that the ferryman had thrown me back into the clammy, freezing fog. Before I'd even managed to stand, Charon was wielding his pole again, driving it into the sand and shoving his ferryboat off from the shore.

For a few steps, I ran after the ferry. But I pulled myself to a halt just before my feet would have touched the water.

I believed that I could catch up with the boat, even at the greater-than-natural speed with which the ferryman of the gods had it moving. But to do so, I would need to wade and possibly swim. My objection to touching that water was as strong as ever.

I had never heard in any story that the River Acheron has waters of forgetfulness. But I would not trust the survival of my memories to the chance of those stories being true.

 _For now, at least, my memories are all that I am._

I had no intention of risking my memories just so Charon the ferryman could toss me off his boat again.

So I stood there and grimly watched as the boat drew away from me. Finally it vanished from sight in the distant blackness of the river.

Even after it disappeared I stood there still.

I thought it made sense that the ferry would come back here, perhaps sooner rather than later.

For one thing, Charon had left without picking up any passengers. If this was some sort of designated ferry site— _although_ , I thought, _gods alone know how an unmarked piece of sand can possibly be designated—_ then it was likely that the charming ferryman would be back here again.

It made more sense for me to wait here in the one place where I'd had contact with anything other than fog and sand, than to go back to counting out four thousand, seven hundred and forty four steps.

To my complete surprise, considering what I'd seen of the Underworld thus far, the ferry _did_ come back, almost immediately. Depending on how wide this river actually was, I thought it possible that Charon had just turned around and started back almost as soon as he'd reached the other shore. I hadn't even had time to grow impatient and start wondering what to do next, when I saw the light of his ferry's torch again.

Knowing better now what to expect, this time I chose a vantage point that enabled me to stand my ground. The ferry raft surged onto shore again beside me, rather than all-but on top of me.

As before, Charon strode to the front of the boat and posted himself there on guard. As before, I strode up to him, but this time I did not try to step onto his boat.

"Are you deaf as well as dead?" he demanded. "Unless you've just had the shortest funeral in history, you're not likely to get passage on this trip, now are you?"

"I seek only information this time," I told him. "Is this your regular ferry location?"

He looked a little bemused at the question, but gave a brisk nod. "I'm here twice a day," he said. "Morning and evening. You wait your turn like a good little shade, and maybe on some future trip you'll be getting on board."

"Which is it now?" I asked him, desperate for this knowledge that seemed it would bring me closer to the ordinary realities of the living. "Morning or evening?"

"Do I look like an oracle to you?" Charon snorted. But despite this complaint, he answered me, "Morning."

Just as before, the ferryman waited only a few moments before shoving his craft back into the water. Again I waited, watching. Again, before I'd even had time to grow particularly impatient, the light of the ferry's torch reappeared out of the river's blackness.

When the boat arrived, Charon's actions were the same as before. I thought I saw him glance at me from the corner of his eyes, and I thought he might perhaps have looked a little disappointed, when it seemed that I was not going to confront him.

I'd told myself that I would stay away from him, this time. I would only stand my ground, to proclaim that he had not intimidated me. I thought that I did not want to squander any possible good will of the ferryman by asking too many questions.

That had been my plan. But when I saw him perform the same bizarre ritual for the third time— standing on guard on his ferry boat for the briefest of waits, then shifting his pole to shove off from the shore, without there being even one passenger on board—my curiosity overcame me.

"Why go back without any passengers?" I called out to him. "Shouldn't you at least wait a little, to see if any buried ones arrive?"

The ferryman of the gods replied with derisive laughter. "Shows how much you know, second-in-command and companion!" he called back. "The boat's been full, both times. Only eighty or so aboard, this time; this'll be the last trip for this morning."

I stared at Charon and his boat in dismay. He grinned at my reaction, and I managed to ask him, "They're on the boat now?"

The ferryman bowed exaggeratedly, apparently to someone standing on the ferry beside him—someone whom I still could not see. With another sneering grin at me, he said, "You didn't think an unburied one like you would be able to see the good, upstanding _buried_ citizens, did you?"

I was certain I would not like his next answer. But all the same I forced myself to ask, "What about the others? The other unburied ones? I should be able to see them, shouldn't I? Where are they?"

Again the ferryman laughed. "They're right here, little shade. They're all around you. What did you think the fog is?"

With that, and while I stared at him in shock worse than I had felt since I died, the ferryman of Acheron once more sent his craft surging into the river.

I kept staring until the ferry's light vanished again in the darkness. Then I could no longer avoid looking at what was behind me.

 _The fog._

I turned and gazed in horror at that dark grey mass that choked the land, hid the sky, and that seemed to reach out its tendrils to touch me.

I thought, _How many of them are there?_

 _Not of them,_ my thoughts corrected me mercilessly. _Not of_ them _, of_ us _._

 _I'm one of them._

In dreadful fascination I glanced to either side of me, up and down the river. Nowhere was the line of fog broken. On all of my trips counting out that cursed four thousand, seven hundred and forty four, I had never seen any break in the fog.

How much of the fog, I wondered, represented one person? Was it a straightforward exchange, with each new unburied soul contributing a stretch of fog the same size as they had been in life? Or were we shrunk, condensed together? Was the piece of fog right in front of me made up of hundreds of people?

I supposed I must look like fog to all of the others—to my fellow unburied ones, and to all of the lucky citizens with funerals, who had taken their places this morning on Charon's ferry.

I wondered if I looked like fog to Charon.

I did not know which horrified me more: to imagine myself as the fog, or to think of the thousands on thousands of children, women, men, who even now must be crowding about me. Unburied, people who would never go on to any other afterlife, who could never do anything again but wander this empty shore.

I thought, _If this has been the way of things since first man walked in the world—how many people must have gone unburied, since the days of men began?_

 _I will not be one of them!_ I thought. _I can not be one of them!_

 _Achilleus will bury me. He will. He has to. It may only have been a day or so since I died; he will do it. He will bury me soon._

Somehow I forced myself to turn my back on the swirling ranks of fog. I sat down on the shore, as near to the river's edge as I could get without actually touching the water.

I sat there, fighting to will myself into some kind of peace.

 _You have no reason to fear the fog,_ I admonished myself. _It is not some ravenous monster. They are only people. Only people, no more and no less._

I thought that if I could see them—if I could see them as themselves, not as the fog—then I would never fear them.

I closed my eyes and imagined the entire shore crowded with people. I imagined I could see the expressions on their faces. I saw men and women who paced angrily along the shore. I saw children who ran along the river's edge, laughing—finding ways to play, even here, though I thought it must be hard finding many games to play when each child could see no one but himself and the ferryman of Hades. I saw people who sat silently weeping, others who raged and cursed as they paced and shook their fists at the ferryman. And I saw others who only sat unmoving, their faces as bleak and lifeless as our blighted shore.

 _You pity those who flee the cities we sack,_ I told myself. _You pity them, but you do not fear them. So should you pity your fellow unburied souls._

 _Pity them, and pray that you do not remain as one of them._

So I told myself, and they sounded very logical words. But still I caught myself shivering when a wisp of fog brushed over me. Still I thrilled with superstitious dread, when I thought I heard the faintest of whispers drift from out of the fog.

Each time I caught myself reacting so, I imagined I could see the people sitting next to me. I imagined I saw them shiver and shrink back from me, and I imagined their faces as they frowned into the fog and strove to see who might be there.

As the day, if so it could be called, drew on, I told myself I was far ahead of where I had been when I was pacing up and down on the shore.

Assuming I trusted in Charon's word—and I did not see that I had any choice but to do so—then I knew he would be returning here. That gave me something solid to hang onto.

I knew that simply by sitting here, I was doing what I needed to do. I no longer had to fear that I would be in the wrong place at the critical moment, that I would miss the ferry, that I would be trapped here simply because I walked down the shoreline at the wrong time.

And there was something else. Charon said he came back here morning and evening. There might be no morning or evening that I could recognize; no means of judging time's passage at all. But for Charon the ferryman, there was.

When he came back, I would know evening had come. And when he returned again, I would know that another night had passed. I could keep hold of that, as my way of clinging to reality. That way I could keep some fragile connection to the world and the life that I had lost.

Little though I liked to accept it, I knew that most of my fate lay in the hands of others, now.

 _That should be no new experience for me,_ I thought. _Our fate is_ always _out of our hands. That is why they call it fate._

Most of it was out of my hands, but I had one task left to me. I had to get through this time of waiting both calm and sane.

Gazing out over the black, flat water, I smiled as little as I remembered my thought of earlier that day.

I had thought, _My memories are all I am._

 _If my memories are all I am,_ I told myself, _then_ _it's up to me to live in my memories as fully and deeply as possible._

Staring at the River Acheron, I set about reconstructing in my mind some of the most beautiful moments of my life.

One of those moments I chose was still only a few days old, from my last morning alive.

I closed my eyes and pictured the grey dawn light that filtered through the walls of our tent. I felt Achilleus, felt the glorious heat of him, underneath me, around me. I tasted the salt tang of his skin. I shivered at the feel of his arms about me, fingers digging into my back, holding on as though he never needed to let go. I saw myself kiss him on the nose as I got out of our bed, and I saw how he smiled as he lay there, watching me dress. I smiled as I felt again the innocent happiness of those moments—the innocence of lovers who have no idea that before the day is out, one of them will be dead.

The kiss with which we parted at the tent door that morning was a lingering one, but by the gods, it was not lingering enough. How I wish that I had lingered longer! How I wish that I'd lingered with him, that we'd stayed there in our tent making love all day—and that somehow, as I was kissing him and holding him, I had finally convinced him that we should leave this miserable, stupid war and go home.

It was an idle dream; I knew that too well. I've been trying to convince him of that for ten years. But since all of this was a daydream, I might as well include in the dream everything that I wanted.

We would go back to Phthia. We would have a reunion with our fathers. I would have a moment to savor the amazed delight on my father's face as he and I hugged, and he realized that I had not died in this war as he'd been certain I was going to. We would send for Achilleus' son to join us. Of course—there must always be some bittersweet note to any dream—that would probably mean that we must also send for Neoptolemus' mother. But I told myself that I could live with that. She would probably demand little more time from Achilleus than do any of the slave women who are part of both of our households. She might not even be willing to travel to Phthia. After all, she has lived ten years as a married woman, but without her husband there to impose his will upon her life. She might have no intention of giving that freedom up.

But wife or no wife, I told myself, we would be together. We would be alive. We could focus, finally, on the real business of ruling: on increasing the crops, improving coastal defenses, rooting out the bandits who are growing too entrenched in the hills. All of the beautiful everyday work of making life better for our people—instead of day by day, year after year, doing nothing but killing.

At that point in my daydream, I sighed, yanked back to my far less satisfactory reality.

The trouble with remembering making love to Achilleus in the grey morning light is that I do not know if that kiss at the tent door will remain our last.

I thank all the gods who are on our side, that Achilleus and I took the time to be with each other that morning. I thank them that when we parted later that day—I racing to put on his famous armor, and he to muster our troops—it was on the heels of those moments of shared peace and pleasure. If I had it to choose, it is the sort of last morning I would have chosen for us.

And yet again, as my thoughts wail out in protest and in grief, it is not what I would choose at all. Never, never would I choose to part from Achilleus, no matter how sweet the parting.

That morning gleams as a gem in my memory now. But the gem will be irretrievably tarnished if Achilleus and I do not see each other again.

If I think of that, I will begin to panic. So I will not think of it.

I wandered instead far back into my memories. Back to the distant time when we both still lived in the young man's illusion of immortality. When the possibility of our parting was a menacing prophecy that we never truly believed we would have to face.

I thought of one golden afternoon perhaps three years into the war. It was during one of our expeditions against Troy's allies, when Achilleus led the Myrmidons in capturing one after another of the island states.

We stopped for a few days at another island, this one inhabited only by sea birds and a herd of goats. We'd stopped to give our men the chance to rest, to make repairs to our armor, equipment and ships—and to give Achilleus and me an all-too-infrequent chance to be alone together.

We went wandering off that afternoon to explore the island. That was the official reason for our wandering. From the grins and jokes of some of the older men, they knew full well it was not the island that their young leaders would be exploring.

Achilleus and I made our way to a cliff top, from the edge of which we could look down and see our ships as tiny as a child's toys in the shimmering water below. There we sat to drink a little wine that we had brought. And there, as we wrestled and tickled each other and tasted the wine on each other's lips, we had an absurdly stupid idea.

I don't know which of us said it first. It began as a joke, and rapidly developed into a dare.

We'd neglected to bring any unguent with us—spit, after all, works just as well, in a pinch—and somehow we started saying that we would use the wine instead.

Anyone could have told us what a ridiculous concept that was, for wine just happens to be sticky.

It was my ass that suffered for it. We'd teased each other about it enough, and challenged each other's courage enough, that neither of us was going to back down. And by the time I was thinking, _Hold on, that really hurts, damn it, we need to at least use some spit, too—_ I was too proud, and too eager for Achilleus, to say that.

A couple of days passed before I stopped feeling the sting of it. Far more lasting were other effects: such as my impression, whether real or imagined, that I could not escape the smell of wine. Our swim in the sea just afterwards, and several more swims and baths over the next few days, did not free me from that maddening ghost of a smell. I groaned to Achilleus that I felt like I would be shitting wine for a week.

It was years, of course, before Achilleus let me live all of this down. Whenever I gave him sensible advice that he wanted to ignore, he was certain to mention—if we were in private—that I might be the elder and supposedly wiser, but at least _he_ hadn't let anybody stick his dick in him with the passage eased only by wine. For a long time after this, too, both of us were apt to break into giggles or start whispering suggestive comments to each other whenever wine appeared or was mentioned. It prompted many a sigh and much eye-rolling by all of our comrades who did not happen to be so young and so giddily in love.

If I must choose a few moments to live in for eternity, that afternoon will be among them, in spite of my aching ass, and the rock I'd managed to lie down on which gave me a bruise on my back, and the inescapable smell of wine. Sitting here by the black waters of the Acheron, I have recreated it for myself again and again. I have seized hold of every image, smell, sensation and sound.

The burnished gold of Achilleus' hair and his skin, as the sun gleamed upon him. The ocean breeze cooling my sweat-damp skin, even as the sun warmed it. The raucous calls of the sea birds blending with our cries. Mingled smells of the sea and our sweat and that ridiculous wine. Our hands and torsos and mouths all sticky with the wine, when Achilleus collapsed upon me at last. The two of us gasping and laughing as we lay in each other's arms.

I have thought of it over and over as I sit here, reclaiming for myself the warmth of the sun on my skin and the heat of Achilleus' body on mine—fighting to keep them as a bulwark against the dreadful, impossible cold.

I am fighting for them. But despite all my resolutions of courage, fears keep creeping in.

I tell myself I am being an idiot. I need not torture myself by imagining a nightmare future that may never come to pass.

So I tell myself. But horrible possibilities still creep into my mind.

 _What if Achilleus is already dead?_

He would assuredly have sought to go after Hektor as soon as he learned of my death. I've no doubt that Achilleus is mighty enough, and beloved of the gods enough—or at least beloved of some of the gods—that he can conquer Prince Hektor. But what then?

Achilleus' mother prophesied, before ever we left for this wretched war, that if Achilleus dies here it will be shortly after the death of glorious Hektor. _How_ shortly is "shortly," she was not able to say.

It could be years. It could be the same day.

All too easily I can picture Achilleus and Hektor cutting each other down, dying almost in the same instant. I can picture Achilleus killing Hektor but failing to adequately guard himself in the wildness of his grief, and being cut down in turn by Prince Hektor's companions.

My thoughts race on, heaping hypothetical grief upon grief.

I have imagined one version in which Achilleus is already slain, and his funeral has already been held—but mine can not be held, for my body was never recovered from the Trojans. Then he will go on across the river; or he may even already have gone on. And I will never be reunited with him. He may never know what has happened to me. He may search the Underworld for me, never realizing that I remain here, left behind him in the fog.

Or perhaps both of us will be lost here. Perhaps the Trojans have seized both of our bodies, and have flung them into the streets of Troy for their dogs. Then we will both of us wander in the fog. We will never know even if we are right next to each other, even if we brush through each other and shiver as the other passes by.

 _No,_ I tell myself, _it is nonsense._ Those gods who favor us would never let such things be.

Achilleus' mother is only a lesser goddess. But she has friends among the mightiest, numbering among them even Zeus himself. Perhaps Thetis cannot save our lives. But I am certain, _certain_ that she will save our souls.

Time and again I tell myself I am being a fool, and I throw myself back into memories of warmth and love.

I tell myself that I must concentrate on gaining more information from the ferryman when next he returns—rather than wallowing in my fears. I must learn from him whether Achilleus has journeyed on his ferry, or whether he has seen Achilleus among those of us who are trapped in the fog.

Charon may not be delighted at facing a new batch of questions. Still, I feel the ferryman is like a man who kicks the stray dogs that crowd about his door—but who will eventually begin feeding them if they wait around long enough.

So I must simply make certain that _I_ am the stray dog Charon decides to feed.

A little while ago I finally started to cry. The sensation jolted me with surprise. I suddenly realized that the tears on my face were warm.

They were the first warmth I have felt since first I woke in the fog.

The moment I realized it, my tears stopped. And they seem to have no intention of starting up again.

How typical of the Underworld it is that you cannot even cry here if crying would bring you comfort!

So I am sitting here. And I am not crying. And I am afraid.

 _Achilleus! How I long to hear your voice, to touch you, to hold you._

 _How I long for you, and how I fear that I will never, never see you again._


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note:

At the heart of this chapter (or "book") is Book 23 of the _Iliad_ , in which the ghost of Patroklos visits his grieving comrade and begs to be given his right of burning. It was that sequence that captured my imagination over 25 years ago, and that made me a fan of Patroklos and Achilleus from that day until this. Here we have the opportunity to see that scene from Patroklos' point of view.

Book III, the final chapter of this novella, is written, but it still requires a little editing before I feel ready to post it.

 _Waiting by the Shore_

 _An Iliad Fan Fiction_

Book II

The light of the ferry appeared in the dark water. I sprang to my feet.

Once again I fought to school my thoughts into calmness. I stood and watched as Charon and his ferryboat made their now familiar arrival.

The ferryman gave a minimal nod as he saw me standing there, and he said, "No funeral yet. Sorry."

I nodded, not particularly surprised. Deciding to cut straight to what I wanted, I asked, "Have you seen Achilleus Son of Peleus here?"

This time, Charon was not inclined to make things easy for me. He said, "Too many answers already, little shade. I must be getting soft-hearted. This is the Underworld, my friend. Answers must be bought or earned."

I watched as he stationed himself at the front corner of his boat, while, presumably, soul after soul of the buried dead trooped aboard. I wondered how many of my comrades, and of our foes, might be among them.

 _Bought or earned,_ I pondered. _Bought with what? Earned how?_

I could hardly buy anything, since I possess precisely nothing. Nothing except my tunic, but I do not even know if that is _real_ , or just a part of the manifestation of my spirit. And even if it is real enough for this place, I do not think one tunic will buy me many answers.

 _Or,_ I supposed, _I also possess myself._

 _But I won't negotiate with myself as currency, either._

I hardly believed any such offer would appeal to Charon. He is a god. I have no doubt he has countless concubines at his disposal. One unfortunate unburied shade is hardly likely to arouse his interest.

Even if I did intrigue him in that way, I will not make the offer. I still believe—I _have_ to believe—that I will see Achilleus again. I have no intention of letting him be welcomed into the Underworld by the discovery that I have been offering myself to the ferryman of Hades.

That left the question of how else I might earn my answers.

I pondered that, as Charon set out with the evening's first round of invisible passengers. By the time he returned, I had decided on a strategy.

The second time the ferryboat surged onto the shore, I called out, "Charon! I challenge you to a wrestling match. If I win, you answer my questions."

I had no thought of actually winning against Charon. One never wins against gods. I simply thought that I must make myself his favorite among whatever stray dogs may hang around him. If I am entertaining enough, and perhaps surprising enough, he may be moved to occasionally toss me some scraps of knowledge.

The ferryman eyed me with skeptical amusement. He asked, "Are you serious?"

From my expression, he must have decided that I was. Charon strode onto the shore toward me. Once on shore he paused to harangue his next batch of passengers, still entirely invisible to me. "Keep on moving, there! Move on till the boat's full up."

He stepped in front of me and jammed his ferry pole downward, standing it upright in the sand beside us.

"We'll just go to one point," he stated. "I've got passengers waiting."

"All right," I conceded. Since I thought I had no chance of winning, I didn't see much sense in being a stickler for the rules.

We stripped off our tunics and tossed them to the ground. I did briefly ask myself what I thought I was doing. But I couldn't see that I had anything to worry about. I wasn't likely to get injured after my death, now was I?

As we grappled with each other, he nearly threw me in the first instant. I was startled to notice that Charon felt warm. Now it really _was_ worth my while to ensure this contest lasted as long as possible. Contact with the ferryman might thaw out some of my supernatural cold.

With my first startlement passed, it seemed Charon and I were roughly equal in strength. How that could be, I do not know. I see no likelihood that I am as strong as even one of the lesser gods. Perhaps Charon held himself in check to make the contest last longer. For moments we basically just stood there. The only movement was somebody's foot sliding a little in the sand, or a minuscule shifting of grip on each other's arms. The only sound was an occasional grunt of effort.

Those _were_ the only movements, until—cheating so flagrantly as to be laughable—Charon broke his grasp on me and reached for his ferry pole. He struck me so strong a blow with the pole that I went flying to land on my back, at a spot that seemed at least a spear's throw away.

"Never trust in the gods," the ferryman of Hades advised. "You ought to know that by now."

"I do know it," I answered cheerfully enough as I picked myself up again. "If gods could be trusted, I wouldn't be here."

Charon had already donned his tunic and was heading back to his boat. As I went to retrieve my own tunic I called after him, "How about a game of dice?"

Never mind that I loathe dice. I have not touched a dice set since the fatal game when I was eight years old—when the argument over my claim that my playmate was cheating ended with my fist breaking his nose and sending slivers of bone into his brain.

Charon stopped just short of the ferryboat and turned back to look at me in surprise. "Have you got a set with you?" he asked.

"No," I said. "I hoped that you might have one."

For an instant more he stared at me. Then he burst out laughing. "You are quite a fellow, second-in-command and companion," he decided. "You are quite a fellow."

With that, the ferryman departed, leaving me to wonder if I'd made any progress at all.

I reminded myself, _You did say you wanted to make yourself amusing to him. I think it is safe to say that you have succeeded in that._

I sat down on the shore again, rather suddenly. It wasn't quite that my legs had given out beneath me, I assured myself, but they very nearly had. I was surprised to realize that I seemed to be feeling some ill effects from our brief wrestling bout.

I couldn't feel any muscle pain, or anything so solid as that. That is no surprise, I suppose, since I must not _have_ any muscles; only the spiritual illusion of muscles. But I felt faint and nauseous. I didn't think I felt colder than before, but I felt less able to cope with the cold. I felt strangely thin and strained, as if I might slip out of consciousness. If I did lose my consciousness, I wasn't at all certain that I would get it back.

Some of my campaign to win Charon's favor must already have succeeded. He seemed genuinely concerned about me when he returned for another batch of passengers a short time later. More than once as he stood guard on his ferryboat, he cast worried frowns to where I sat dejectedly a few feet from the boat. When he left this time, he even went out of his way to encourage me.

"Got a bumper crop this evening," he said. "I'll be back for a fourth load of them. Don't lose heart, little shade. I'll come back here again once I've dropped off the fourth bunch."

 _Come back?_ I wondered. _Come back for what?_

He was coming back, I soon learned, for a dice game.

Leaving his pole on the boat this time, he walked over to me and sat down. He was brandishing a small, embroidered pouch, out of which he poured a set of finely carved bone dice.

I tried not to look visibly disturbed at the sight of them. Dice embody bad memories for me, anyway. And there seemed something sinister about the sight of bone dice in the Underworld.

I told myself that was stupid. They were probably carved of cattle bones, or swine, or something else perfectly ordinary and innocent. Just because they were in the Underworld, there wasn't any reason to assume they were carved from, say, the bones of unburied men.

"High score after three rounds wins," Charon suggested. "And if you win, I'll answer some of your questions."

"Right," I agreed, trying to conjure at least something resembling a smile.

"You throw first," said the ferryman.

I think I started to feel somewhat less horrible as the game went on. Whether that was caused simply by the time that had passed, or by the distraction of the game, I don't know. So long as I felt better, I saw no need to inquire about the reason.

For the first two rounds, it seemed that Charon and I were both in very middling luck. Our throws were consistently unremarkable, with no score that caused either of us to curse his luck or to exclaim in triumph. When both had completed our first two throws, my score was three points higher than Charon's.

I thought a brief but heartfelt prayer to Thetis, to Hera and to Athene, and I made my third throw.

It was another middling throw—bland that I wondered if indeed some deity might be guiding the fall of the dice. The throw was four, two threes, and one two.

Charon scooped up the dice, grinned at me as he briefly shook them in his hands, and threw.

Each one of the dice showed a one.

The ferryman of Hades gave a whistle. "Will you look at that," he remarked. "Looks like someone must be sending me a message."

I forced myself to keep my gaze and my nerves steady, as I wondered whether Charon would keep his word to me. I had not forgotten the end of our wrestling match, or the ferryman's warning never to trust the gods.

But this time, it seemed that he contemplated no ill turns. His expression turning solemn, he said, "Achilleus Son of Peleus has not been here. At least he has not journeyed on my ferry. And if he's here among the fog, he hasn't made himself known to me." With another, rueful grin the ferryman added, "I imagine he'd make himself as difficult to ignore as you do?"

Through the almost sickening rush of relief that I felt, I managed to nod. "Yes," I said, feeling a faint smile touch my face. "Yes, I imagine he would. Probably a great deal more difficult to ignore."

"He is not here," Charon went on, not looking at me as he scooped up the dice and deposited them back into their pouch. "But someone else you know is. Prince Hektor, breaker of horses."

My brief feeling of relief vanished, replaced by a frozen feeling that seemed, at first, to be no emotion at all. "Hektor?" I repeated in a whisper.

The ferryman nodded. "He's sitting right over there," he said, jerking his thumb and seeming to indicate a spot only a few paces distant from us.

I had not seen or heard Charon speak to anyone here except for me. But he must have, I thought, if he'd been conversing with Hektor. It was a strange thing to realize that there might be many things he had done here, right in front of me, that I had not seen or heard because he is a god and did not wish me to see or hear them—or simply because they were not intended for me.

 _None of that is important now,_ I told myself. I knew I was thinking of these things because I did not want to contemplate what Hektor's presence here must mean.

I said to Charon, "If you will, please convey my greetings to Prince Hektor. And tell him I am sorry he is here."

Charon nodded, stood up and walked the few steps to that seemingly empty stretch of shore. This time I had no difficulty hearing him, as he said, "Patroklos son of Menoitios greets you, and says he is sorry you are here."

After a moment he turned back to me and told me, "Prince Hektor greets you as well, and sends you the same message."

My throat seeming painfully dry, I said, "Please ask him for me who killed him."

The ferryman repeated the question, and an instant later the answer came. "Achilleus."

Charon walked back over to me and patted me on the shoulder. He remarked, though I could barely focus on his words, "You know, I think I would have answered your question even if you hadn't won. I think you're the first shade who's ever offered to play dice with me."

I believe I managed some sort of good night comment to him as he returned to his boat, but I am not certain of it. The ferryman departed, and I was left, caught in a tangle of emotions more confusing than anything I have ever felt.

Ordinarily I would find it disquieting to know that an invisible Hektor is sitting there just paces away from me. But just then, I wouldn't have cared if every damned soldier of Troy was crowded there about me in the fog.

 _Hektor is dead,_ I thought. _Hektor is dead._

If the goddess Thetis' prophecy was right, it means that Achilleus will soon be dead, too.

Hektor is dead, and Achilleus has killed him—knowing that in doing so, he has almost certainly decreed his own death.

I will not claim that I thought of it every day of the ten years we've been at war. But I know if I'd been counting them, I would long since have lost count of the number of times I've sighed a little in relief at knowing that Hektor, breaker of horses, was still alive.

He was alive, so Achilleus' life was safe, too.

But now the breaker of horses lives no more. And there is no safety left for Achilleus.

Dismay, concern and dread tore at me as I thought, _I don't want him to die!_

For twenty years I have been his friend. For all that time I've wanted to protect him, to guide him, to be his shield against all sorrow and pain. Never mind that Achilleus makes all such wishes pointless, since he accepts no guidance, and thinks that so long as he wields his spear and his sword, he has no need of a shield.

For ten years I have been his lover, and his comrade in this war. Every day of those ten years, I have prayed to Zeus and Hera to bring him home safely at the end of this. To bring him home to all the joys I want for him, to all the gifts that belong to the man who lives a long and happy life.

 _I still want all of that for him!_ I insisted in my thoughts.

I still want it for him. I want him to go home to his father and his son. I want him to live to hold his grandchildren, to teach them and train them—since he gave up, for this war, the opportunity to do that for his son. I want him to someday sit by his hearth, smiling as he tells his grandchildren spellbinding tales of his glorious youth—and of his companion whose life's blood was spilled outside the walls of Troy.

I want him to have that.

 _But,_ my thoughts wailed, _I don't want him to have all of that without me!_

Furious and sickened with myself, I asked, _Can I truly be so selfish a man that I wish my lover dead just so he can be with me?_

I long for him, I want him, but I cannot, _cannot_ want him at such a price.

I cannot want him to be with me if it takes from him everything I've always dreamed that he would have.

Thetis' prophecy only says he will _probably_ die soon after Prince Hektor. I reminded myself of that again, as I've been reminding myself for ten years.

 _Maybe there is still a way for him to escape this fate. Maybe there is still a chance._

 _And if he does live?_ I asked myself. _If he does go home to a long and happy life—what of me?_

I thought of myself waiting all those years. And if my entire being were not cold already, I would have gone cold with the fear that at the end of those years he will no longer want me.

He will love others. He will move onward. And he will forget.

He will forget me, and I will lose every happiness that I have prayed for, for him.

 _But I must want that,_ I thought. _I must._

 _How can I say I love him, if I want him to lose everything for me?_

 _And can you stand it,_ I asked myself, _can you endure it, if when at last you see him again, he wants you no more?_

 _It does not matter what I can endure,_ I told myself flatly. _What is fated, will happen, whether I can endure it, or not._

With such thoughts, I sat, as the grey day of the Underworld drifted, unaltered, into its grey night.

I tore at myself with those thoughts, with those questions and fears, until a woman's voice called out from behind me, "Patroklos!"

I scrambled to my feet and turned around. Racing through the fog toward me was a golden- haired woman in a gown and mantle the colors of the sea: silver-footed Thetis, sea goddess and Achilleus' mother.

I cried out to her, "Mother!" as she rushed into my arms.

She is not, of course, the mother who bore me. But she has become near enough to that as makes no difference, in the twenty years I have lived as companion to her son.

For a few sweet moments we held each other, both of us sobbing. Just last night I thought that I couldn't cry in the Underworld, but it seems that I still can.

At last she stepped back from me, still holding my hands—smiling at me, though she was crying still.

"Dear, dear Patroklos," she murmured. "Oh, my dearest, I'm so sorry for what has happened to you. I am so very sorry."

" _Thank you_ for coming," I said to her. "How is Achilleus?"

Pain twisted her smile. She said, "Do you even have to ask that?" Thetis gave a deep, shuddering sigh. She told me, "He is doing badly. He is doing worse than you can imagine."

I suppose there should have been no surprise to me in that. But it still hurt horribly to hear it.

"I'm so sorry, Thetis," I whispered. "I'm so sorry for what you must be suffering with him."

"Come," she said, taking my arm and leading me a little farther along the sand—a few paces farther away from where I supposed Prince Hektor might still be sitting. "Sit with me and I will tell you everything."

I would have sat beside her, but she said, "Let me warm you, at least for a little while." She guided me to lie with my head on her lap, and she wrapped her mantle about me.

I thought I should probably be ashamed to accept a position so childlike. But I told myself I had no need to feel shame with her.

The goddess must know how it is with us here. She must know how I crave the warmth that now crept with painful slowness from her into me.

She stroked my hair, and she began to speak. Her soft, gentle voice did nothing to diminish the horror of her tale.

"Antilochus came to him to tell him of your death. Achaians and Trojans were battling for your corpse, with fair-haired Menelaos leading the fight to defend you. Achilleus could not go back into the battle, for his armor was lost with you. But Athene spread her aegis about him and joined her war cry to his, so that it carried over all the battlefield, and the Trojans were routed and fled. Then the Achaians were able to retrieve your body, and Achilleus and the rest of your comrades mourned by it all that night. He swore that he will not bury you until he has avenged your death, and brought Hektor's corpse to cast into the dust at the foot of your funeral pyre. I went to the lord Hephaistos and sought new armor and weapons for Achilleus, which I brought to him with the dawn."

Her beauteous face bore a troubled frown as she went on, "Achilleus wished to rush into battle with no further delay, but Odysseus and the other leaders of the Achaians insisted that the men must at least breakfast before they went into combat. The lord of men Agamemnon sent back the woman he had taken from Achilleus, and sent many gifts besides. Then the army broke their fast, but Achilleus would touch neither food nor drink, and swore that he will not, while you lie torn about with the sharp bronze, unburied and not yet avenged."

"What!" I exclaimed, sitting up. "He's going into battle without eating? Thetis, you've got to do something! Go to him! You've got to talk some sense into him, somehow, no matter what it takes!"

"Dearest, it's all right," she assured me, clasping my hands. "Zeus himself sent Pallas Athene to nourish him with ambrosia and nectar, so no weakness of hunger will come upon him."

"Oh," I sighed, feeling overcome by my relief. "That's all right, then. When you see the Son of Kronos next and the Lady of the Grey Eyes, please thank them for me."

"I will," she promised, and she went on with her tale.

"Achilleus led the bronze-armored Achaians against Troy. The battle raged all the day, and the slaughter he wreaked upon the Trojans is beyond telling. At last, as the long afternoon was wearing away, he met Hektor in single combat, and slew him."

"I know," I said. "Hektor's here. Charon told me."

"Yes," she nodded. "I saw him just now, when I was looking for you." A frown again knitting her perfect brow, the goddess continued, "Achilleus pierced Hektor through the throat with his spear, and when the life had fled him, Achilleus cut holes by the tendons between ankle and heel, and drew thongs of ox-hide through them, and fastened Hektor's body to the back of his chariot so that the head fell in the dust. And thus he dragged Hektor's corpse around the walls of the city, in full view of all his people. Then he dragged the body back to the ships of the Myrmidons, and hurled it face down on the ground at the foot of the bier where your body lies. And he and the rest of your companions are once again passing the night in mourning for you."

I will not deny that I felt a surge of vindictive pleasure as the goddess spoke of Hektor's corpse being dragged around the walls of Troy. But that pleasure swiftly vanished, fading into unease before she had finished speaking.

"It is not right," I said then, frowning toward the place where I supposed Hektor to be sitting. "No one should be forced to linger here unburied."

I might not have been so firm in that statement before I experienced this place for myself. But I _am_ here, now, and being trapped on this shore for eternity is a fate I would not wish upon the worst of enemies—or indeed, upon the man who killed me.

I suggested, "Perhaps you can go to Achilleus, once the first frenzy of his wrath has passed, and convince him to send Hektor's body back to his people."

My frown deepened as I thought of other things she had said, and pieced them together. I said, "Then ... if he has slain Hektor, and cast him in the dust, then he's fulfilled all that he vowed to do. Then, is he holding my funeral now?"

"No," she sighed. "No, he is not. I don't know when he will."

"But—if he's fulfilled his vow, then there's no more need to wait—"

The goddess Thetis tightened her grasp about my hand. She said softly, "Patroklos—my son knows you are gone. He knows that. But—I believe your body is like an island to him, a rock that he can grab hold of in the waves, so that he does not drown in your loss." She sighed, shaking her head. "I do not know how long he intends to keep your body with him. I doubt if he has thought it through, himself."

Looking about to break into tears at the memory, she said, "When I brought him the armor from Hephaistos, I found him where I suppose he had been all night, lying weeping in your body's arms."

My face must have plainly shown how deeply disturbing that was to me.

She hastened on in the attempt to comfort me. "Your body will not be corrupted," she said. "I have seen to that. I have preserved it with ambrosia, so no harm will come to it. He could keep it by him a year or more, and it would not be changed."

That was a _little_ better, I supposed; better that than to think of my body rotting away in the tent Achilleus and I had shared. But the mention of keeping my body for a year was not anything I wanted to hear, either.

"But he isn't going to do anything like that," I insisted. "He isn't—is he? Thetis, he cannot intend that. Can he?"

Her very uncertain expression sent a stab of fear through me. "I'm sorry, Patroklos," she whispered. "I wish I knew. I think—I think maybe he does intend to."

"Well, he can't be allowed to," I declared.

I wished, as I have wished so many times before, that somehow my damned pigheaded beloved could _finally_ get some sense beaten into him.

"That's no decent way to live, crying in the arms of a corpse. He's got to stop. Will you go to him for me?" I asked her. "Tell him—tell him how it is with me here. If he won't see reason for his own sake, maybe he will for mine. Tell him that until he holds my funeral, I'm stuck here freezing my ass off in this fog!"

The goddess smiled at my less-than-dignified choice of words. "I have tried to tell him," she said, "though not exactly in those terms. I have tried to speak with him of it, as have many of your comrades. I think—I think nothing will truly get through to him until you tell him yourself."

I stared at her, feeling a wondering rush of fear and of hope.

"Can I do that?" I asked. "Is it possible?"

She nodded briskly. "It is. I will help you go back tonight. I've brought an offering that will help you to make the journey."

Thetis stood up, and I did the same. She clapped her hands once, and from the fog appeared the graceful form of one of her Nereid sisters. I had not known the other goddess was there, until that instant. But I recognized her: Nesaie, sweet-faced and black-haired, whom I remembered many times visiting Thetis at the palace in Phthia.

I managed a faint smile at Nesaie, and she smiled back. Any more formal greeting was beyond my powers then, for I was staring at what Nesaie held in her hands.

It was a wide, shallow bowl of gleaming bronze. Filling the bowl was a thick, wine-dark liquid that could only be blood.

Thetis spoke beside me, though I could not tear my gaze from the blood to look at her. She confided, "The dead aren't normally permitted to partake of their offerings until they've crossed the river. I've called in a few favors to bring this to you."

Nesaie stepped up to me and held out the shining bowl. Vowing that I would not let myself think of the strangeness of all of this, I took it in my hands.

I managed to nod in gratitude both to Nesaie and to Thetis, and I whispered to them, "Thank you." Then I lifted the bowl to my lips, and drank.

It seemed to taste of nothing—which I suppose is something to be grateful for, under the circumstances. But its effect was immediate and wondrous.

I gasped. I thought, _I feel almost alive._

The cold was all-but banished, leaving only the smallest tendrils behind. The warmth glowing in its place seemed to radiate from within me, as nothing had done since I died. My limbs felt solid and real, almost as though I had a body again, instead of a spirit held together only by my stubborn desire to exist.

Nesaie took the bowl from my hands as I stood there marveling. That woke me from my amazement. I turned to Nesaie's sister, grasping up Thetis' hands and kissing them. "Thetis," I told her, " _thank you_."

She smiled at me, but she said, "We must hurry. You don't have much time."

The goddess Thetis led me by the hand into the fog.

This time I did not try to count my steps, or to decipher where or how far we might be walking. I trusted Thetis to lead me where I needed to be.

As we walked, she was continuing her warnings.

"You must not delay," she said to me. "You must not linger, however much you wish to. And you will wish to, but you must not. Make Achilleus hear you. You can't let anything get in the way of that. Remember that. _You must remember_."

"I will remember," I told her.

Thetis stopped walking, and I noticed that the fog seemed thinner just ahead of us. I still could not quite see through it. But I could tell that there _was_ something to see beyond it. Through its grey wisps and swirls I saw something darker, and also an occasional gleam of light. With a jolt of elation I realized that there, beyond our grey nothingness that I so detest, must be the honest darkness of night.

Pointing to the dark beyond the fog, Thetis said, "He is just ahead of us."

I started forward and would have broken into a run, but the goddess put her hand on my arm to stop me. Gazing desperately up into my face, she said, "I wish we could change what has happened to you. I wish this sorrow had never come to you. But it was your fate. As it is Achilleus' fate to mourn you. And mine to grieve for both of you. Even gods cannot escape our fate."

Urgently she went on, "You won't be able to come back again, after you have had your burning. This will be the last time you see him—until he follows you. What you most need to say to him, say it tonight."

Her mention of Achilleus following me brought to the fore again the question that had been so tormenting me: the question of Achilleus' fate.

I clasped my hand around hers, and said, "Mother—there is one other thing I need to ask you. I beg of you to tell me. Do you have another prophecy? Have you seen his fate? Is it certain, now, that his death will follow close on Hektor's? Or does he still have a chance?"

She smiled at me in sorrow, reaching up to brush her hand across my cheek. "Dearest Patroklos," she said. "I have no new prophecy. I do not need one. My son has no chance for a long life, now. He has no chance—because if the opportunity comes for him to live, he will not take it. He has no reason to take it, now that you are gone."

She gave me no time for the grief and the protests with which I wanted to answer that. "Go to him," she told me. "Don't let anything stop you." The goddess stood on her toes and kissed my cheek, and she whispered, "Good luck."

I managed one last smile for her. Then I turned and walked out of the fog.

Nothing could have prepared me for the glorious beauty of the world.

I had thought Thetis underestimated me, when she kept insisting I must beware of lingering, of losing too much time.

Now I know it was I who underestimated the very real risk that I would do exactly as she feared.

I felt like I was suddenly drunk. A thousand sights, sounds and sensations rushed in at me, ravishing me, entrancing me.

The stars were so bright! I wondered if I had ever truly seen them before, as they pierced me with their impossible brilliance, glowing in lusters of silver and bronze.

The breeze, racing in off the sea, kissed me and danced through me, and I wanted nothing more than to lose myself in its embrace.

All the smells, so many of them, so intoxicating, seemed to weave themselves into the most exquisite of tapestries, that could only be the work of the goddesses of Olympos. I reveled in the wondrous bounty of all of them.

The salt depths of the sea. The tang of our cookfires and the rich sweetness of roasting meat. The dung of our army's horses and of the herds on which the strong-greaved Achaians have been fed year after year, as our encampment grew to be almost a city of its own, there on the beach of Troy.

 _Year after year._ Those words jolted at me, reminding me of the passage of time. I knew a moment's wild fear that I had stood here for years, drunkenly swimming in all the sensations that were lost to me.

 _I will remember,_ I desperately repeated the promise I had made to Thetis. _I will remember._

Somehow I forced myself to stop drinking in the glories of the world, and to focus on what was right around me.

I knew where I was. Near the encampment of the Myrmidons; I recognized the dark outlines of our ships off to my left along the shore.

The stretch of beach where I stood has become as familiar to me as are any of the sites in Phthia where we passed the days of our childhood. Here Achilleus and I have walked together times beyond count. Here we have sat together, apart from all of our comrades, talking of everything and nothing, weaving our golden dreams of futures that will never be.

This night, we were not here alone. Instead of being snugly tucked into their tents, our Myrmidons were scattered across the beach. Some of them slept, but most sat in small groups, talking quietly, clustered about the flickering glimmer of campfires. Some were close enough to me that I could almost recognize their faces; I thought that I would recognize them if I walked only a few paces closer. I thought of doing so, of wandering from one group of them to the next, and the next, basking in the simple comforts of hearing their voices and sitting beside them. I wanted to watch the firelight play across their faces with life and color and warmth that I would never know in the Underworld.

 _I am drifting again,_ I realized, cursing in sudden dread. _I am forgetting what I must do._

The danger was all too close that I would waste the little time I had left to me. I would squander my only chance, without ever speaking with the man I was here to find.

Achilleus was very near to me, as his mother had said he would be. I saw that our men had posted themselves at a cautious distance from him. They were near enough to answer swiftly if he summoned them, or if they had to try and stop him from drowning himself, or some other such madness. But they were far enough that they need not be burned by the fire of his grief.

He lay asleep where he had flung himself down in the sodden sand. No, I thought, rather he must have flung himself down in the water itself. The tide was going out, but it was clearly not long since it had been where he lay. His tunic clung to his body, soaked through, and his skin glistened from the embrace of the waves.

I ran to him and dropped to my knees beside him in the sand.

"Oh, my love," I whispered. "Oh, my own, dear love."

All of his mother's warnings could never have prepared me for the state Achilleus was in.

He had obviously allowed no water near him since I died, except for the ocean's waves. His glorious hair—of which he is normally so proud—was hopelessly tangled, matted with blood and with the gods alone know what else. His face was dark with intermingled blood and dirt, cut through here and there by the worm trails of tears. More than the sea had soaked his tunic. In places blood still caked it, molding it and sticking it to him like a breastplate.

His face, always so childlike and innocent in sleep, looked wan now with exhaustion. I wished I did not have to wake him.

 _Oh, that's brilliant, Patroklos!_ I sneered at myself. _Will you lose your chance to speak with him because you felt bad about waking him up?_

Tentatively I reached out to him, as though it were the first time I had touched him. I ran one finger along his collarbone. I shivered, and in his sleep, I saw him do the same.

I could not truly touch him. But I could feel _something_. He was like a hot afternoon breeze, or like immersing my hand in ocean water warmed by the summer sun.

"Achilleus," I whispered. "Achilleus."

I leaned over him and placed a kiss upon his lips. He did not wake at my kiss, of course; that would be too much to expect. I told myself, _That sort of thing happens only in the stories we tell to children. Not in life—or in death._

I moved lower, kissing his chin, his throat. I kissed along his collarbone, following the same path that my finger had traced.

There I stopped, for I told myself that if I did not stop now, I never would. I could sacrifice my sole chance to make him hear me, by doing nothing but kissing him until I was pulled back down to the Underworld.

And, I thought, it might not be long before that happened. I was sure that I did not feel the same strength and solidity I'd felt when first I drank Thetis' offering of blood. The old faintness and cold were creeping back. I might have very little time left.

"Achilleus. Achilleus! You've got to wake up and hear me."

 _This is ridiculous,_ I thought. _Am I going to have to start shouting at the top of my lungs?_ I could just see it, if my shouts brought all of the other Myrmidons to us, but still did not wake the man I sought. I wondered if the others would be able to see and hear me. If they did, at least maybe one of them would wake Achilleus for me.

"Achilleus. Achilleus, damn it, wake up!"

My voice wasn't quite at the bellowing level yet, but it was getting close. Achilleus stirred and moaned a little, but he did not wake.

Panic raced through me. What would I do if I couldn't wake him? I supposed I should seek out one of our comrades. Antilochus, perhaps. Or, no, Automedon was a better choice. He would likely be somewhere closer to Achilleus, so I should be able to find him faster. I was sure he would believe in me—if he could see me and hear me—and would do everything he could to help me.

What I needed most was just for someone to wake Achilleus. If I delivered my message to someone else, I thought I might as well not have bothered. My beloved would be too cursed stubborn to change anything he thought or did, unless he heard me tell him what I needed, himself.

Hesitating on the brink of running to find someone who would wake him for me, I started trying to work one of the tangles out of his hair.

I was not solid enough to have really gotten the tangle out, even if I'd worked at it all night. But his hair moved a little as I touched it, as though in the gentlest breeze.

He shivered, and opened his eyes.

"It's all very well for you to sleep, Achilleus," I snapped, "while I'm lying unburied. You never used to be so forgetful of me."

His eyes widened, and he soundlessly whispered my name.

Immediately, I felt sorry for my angry words. My last chance to speak with him in this world, and I was going to waste it peevishly scolding him for sleeping?

"Achilleus," I murmured then, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

He struggled up on one elbow, and hesitatingly reached out his other hand toward me. I touched my hand to his. I felt the blissful warmth as our fingers mingled, and I wondered if my hand felt cold to him.

"Achilleus," I said, "you've got to give me my funeral. Give me my rite of burning; please, don't wait. I can't go on into Hades." I added with bitter humor, "The good, buried souls won't let me associate with them! I'll just be wandering in nothingness, until you let me go on."

"Patroklos," he whispered again. He looked down to where our hands melded, then up again to my face.

I felt so close to tears. I told him, "This is our last chance to be here together. We'll never sit here again, talking nonsense and dreaming. This is our last time—until you follow me."

"Soon," he said, looking at me in steadfast intensity. "I will follow you soon."

Gods, I felt so faint, so distant from him, as though I suddenly was not there at all. Hearing my voice shake, I rushed onward.

"Achilleus, please, when you die, have my ashes buried with yours. In the golden urn from your mother—I know she meant it for your ashes only, but please, let me be there, too." Somehow I could not help smiling a little, even now. "Like sharing a bed again," I mused. "Please, delight of my heart. I never want to be farther from you than that."

Urgently he said, "Patroklos, do not be angry with me. I didn't want you to journey to Hades until you've been mourned as you should be. Until you'd been avenged. I'm accomplishing the things I vowed I would do for you. I will do all that you ask.

"Please," he went on, "why do you hold back from me? If this is the only time we have, let us hold each other tonight. Let us weep together and take comfort in that, if every other comfort is lost to us."

"It's too late," I whispered, for the sudden cold that rushed through me left no doubt of what was about to happen. "I'm sorry, Achilleus. Achilleus, I am so sorry."

Then he was gone—or I was gone.

I seemed to be back exactly where, and how, I had started after my death. On my knees in the fog, as though I had just fallen, with one hand pressed to the ground.

Numbly I got to my feet. This time I made no effort to count my steps, or to care where I went. I walked precipitously through the grey nothingness, thinking that I did not care if I found the river or not. But my despairing half-hope that I would simply be lost forever did not find fulfillment. My steps followed the same route as they had before. Again I found myself trudging down the slope; again I stood on the bleak, unchanging shore.

Anguished grief washed through me as I stared blindly at the black water.

I grieved that I could not be with him, could not help him through all that was to come. I grieved that I could not hold him, could not kiss away his tears, could not wash the blood and filth from him. I grieved that we could not do as he'd said and mourn our parting together, in each other's arms.

I loathed to think of the pain that was ahead of him, as he forced himself to say farewell to all that he still had left of me. I loathed to know that I was still trapped here, waiting.

And I loathed that even now, we still did not know. We still did not know if, at the end of all, we would see each other again.

I sank down to the ground and lay there, sobbing out my heartbreak into Acheron's sands.


	3. Chapter 3

_Waiting by the Shore_

 _An Iliad Fanfiction_

Book III

At some time in the grey night my tears ceased. I rolled onto my back, thinking bleakly that I made a pallid reflection of Achilleus lying on the beach in the world above me.

When Charon's ferryboat finally arrived that morning, I was sitting up. That was all the effort I could muster to involve myself in my surroundings.

Charon walked up to me for a moment and patted me on the shoulder. He made no comment nor any attempt at conversation. It must have been only too obvious how things stood with me.

The thought came to me that I _had_ become like Charon's dog. At least I was now a dog that he patted, rather than kicked.

And at least I now had reason to hope that I would not be his dog forever.

I knew now, I reminded myself, that my body was not lost. It was not being despoiled by the Trojans. And now I had Achilleus' word that he would give me my funeral—although he was not fulfilling that promise with any great haste.

 _I told you to hold my funeral_ now _, Achilleus,_ I thought bitterly. _Not when you've spent a couple more weeks in mourning and have slain a few hundred more Trojans for me!_

I told myself I was churlish to be angry with him. His love for me drove him to whatever excesses he was indulging in.

 _His love for me_ , I thought with a sigh, _and the simple fact of who he is._

Achilleus is a man who does everything in extremes. It should be no surprise to me that he would also mourn to a mad extreme—and that my funeral should be the most elaborate, the most extravagant, and, gods help me, the longest.

 _But, for Olympos' sake,_ was my exasperated thought, _how long can one funeral possibly be?_

 _What is there to do, apart from piling up a mountain of wood, saying a few prayers, and setting the damned thing alight?_

I presumed there would also be funeral games, but those should come after the burning.

What else could the ridiculous fellow conceivably be getting up to?

 _Achilleus, my sweet love,_ I thought, _I wish that somehow, sometime in your life you had learned a_ little _moderation._

 _He would not be the man I love,_ I told myself, _if he had._

At some point as that day straggled onward, I remembered another matter to trouble my thoughts.

 _Hektor._

 _I should have spoken to Achilleus about Hektor. I should have told him to send Hektor's body home._

It had been my mind to do so, when I set out with Thetis into the fog. But I remembered nothing of that resolution in the midst of drunkenly wondering at the world, and then struggling to say something meaningful to my lover before I disappeared.

 _Damn it. Damn it. I should have spoken for him._

Achilleus might not be willing to end his orgy of vengeance yet, even for me. But I should at least have tried.

 _It's not my fault,_ I thought resentfully. I _didn't tell the breaker of horses it was a good idea to kill a man who's already been wounded and who's had the armor and weapons stripped off him by a god._ _If Hektor thought that was appropriate behavior, maybe he deserves whatever suffering he gets._

 _Shut up, Patroklos,_ I snarled back at myself. _It was the middle of a battle; what would you expect Hektor to do? He is human, and he has his own people to protect—and you'd led the bronze-armored Achaians to within a hair's-breadth of breaching Troy's defenses. How likely is it that any man would pass up a chance to turn the battle's tide by killing the commander of an assault that almost succeeded?_

My thoughts grumbled onward, _It's not my responsibility to save him. Hektor has his friends among the gods, just as we do. If Phoibos Apollo loves Hektor so much, let him save the breaker of horses from Achilleus' wrath. Phoibos killed_ me _for Hektor's sake. Can't the god be bothered now to rescue the poor bastard's body?_

I argued all manner of reasons why I was not to blame for Prince Hektor's predicament. None of my arguments spared me from a sour feeling of guilt when I eyed our fog-choked shore and wondered which bit of fog was Hektor.

I am sure I was still no very pleasant company when the ferryman returned that evening. But at least my resentment and guilt had pulled me back from the lowest ebb of my despair.

I had little hope that Charon would tell me I'd had my funeral. I thought certain I would feel some difference in myself when my rite of burning was accomplished. And when my body was appropriately dealt with, should I not also be able to see all my fellow buried souls?

Nonetheless, I stood up as Charon's ferry approached. I did not expect I would be getting aboard. But I would not let the ferryman see me again the dejected figure I had been that morning.

Charon grinned in greeting, and he called out to me from his boat. "Good to see you feeling better, little shade! Will you play another dice game when I'm done with my shift?"

I felt like telling him that I'd rather pour ashes on my head and roll about in cow dung. But I held my reply in check. I told myself it was stupid, anyway, to hang on to my abhorrence of dice. It wasn't as though I made poor Clysonymus any _more_ dead by playing dice again. Nor could I, by abstaining from dice games, bring the poor damned kid back to life.

So I called back, "Gladly, master ferryman."

I reflected that Charon must really love the game. His friendliness to me had blossomed since I first suggested dice.

That was another reason to get over my dread. I had to hang on to Charon the ferryman's good will. In this place, it might be the only asset I had.

After three more trips of ferrying passengers I could not see, Charon returned in cheerful humor, with his bag of dice.

We had made no bargain this time about answering questions. I decided to test his new-found friendliness by asking a few, all the same. As the game became the longest-running dice match I have played, I asked him something I had wondered when I first learned the nature of the fog. "Do I look like fog?"

Charon chuckled. "It would be no easy matter to wrestle with fog," he commented. "Or to play dice with it. No, you're pretty clear, close up. It's only when you're a few paces away that you start looking foggy."

Uneasily I asked another question that had gnawed at me when I feared I would never have my rite of burning. "What happens to those who are never buried? Do they become ... more foggy, over time? Do they come to seem as the fog to themselves, as well as to all others?"

The ferryman shrugged. "I suppose probably they do. Something like that. Most of them wander away from the shore eventually, anyway. I don't know whether those ones seem like fog to themselves, or not. There aren't many I remember seeing by the shore longer than a few hundred years."

On hearing that, my face must have gone very grim. Charon grinned and pounded me on the shoulder. "Fret not, warlike son of Menoitios. It is not your fate to drift away in the fog."

I managed to summon a faint smile. "I thought you told me you aren't an oracle," I said.

"On this, I am," the ferryman declared. "You mark my words. It won't be long now before you're setting foot in my boat."

That evening Charon had brought a tablet and stylus for keeping scores, along with his dice. Our scores were both far up in the hundreds before he finally sighed and said he should head home for the night.

I wondered what "home" might be for the ferryman of Hades. Did he have a nice little wife waiting supper for him, and children eager to climb all over him and tell him the stories of their day?

As he picked up the dice, Charon was eyeing me with a measuring gaze. He nodded decisively. "I thought so," he said. "It really won't be long for you, now. Your funeral's probably already started."

"How can you tell?" I asked him in surprise.

He shrugged again. "Hard to say. You look ... more solid, somehow. Brighter." Charon grinned at me as he got to his feet. "Wait and see," he said. "Tomorrow morning you'll be the first passenger on the boat."

With that heartening prophecy, the ferryman departed.

Bemused, I looked down at my hands. I tried to determine if they seemed any brighter to me.

No, I supposed. It was foolishness to think they might. I have never looked like fog to myself.

For some little time I managed to keep sitting there, fighting to remain calm. At last nervous energy drove me to my feet. I started pacing the shore, but only a little distance from the ferry site. This time I did not bother to count my steps.

I wondered what would prove the crucial moment. Would I be able to sense some change while my funeral was going on?

Or perhaps the coming transformation would not become clear to me until every last fragment of my body was reduced to ash.

As the night crept on, I finally noticed one difference. I started to smell smoke.

I suddenly realized it was the first smell I had encountered in the Underworld. Only during my brief return to the living world, had I smelled anything since my death.

I stopped and stood still, there by the river's edge. I shivered a little as I fought to sense more of what must be taking place in the world above me.

No sight and no sound of it carried to me, however I strained my senses in the hope of capturing them. But the smell was as clear as pain: sharp and sweet and bitterly familiar. The smell of hundreds of other funerals on hundreds of other nights.

The rich tang of the wood smoke, blending with the smell of roasting cattle—both the meat for the funeral feasts, and the fat piled about our men's corpses to aid in their burning. And, though no one ever admits their weakness by saying this aloud, it is there so we can comfort ourselves with the illusion that nothing of what we smell comes from the bodies of our fallen comrades.

I closed my eyes and pictured so many other nights.

I pictured the ranks of pyres that blaze along the beach of Troy, on days when the fighting has gone ill for us. I pictured the pyres of our footsoldiers, little more than the size of any bonfire, and here and there a greater blaze where the pyre burns a man of lineage and command.

I pictured the two of us on those other nights: Achilleus and I standing close by each other's sides in the fiery dark, voices rising to Olympos with all of the others' in the songs and prayers for our dead. And I thought of us walking together to our tent when all but the nearest mourners departed. Holding hands sometimes as we walked, as though we were children again. Feeling that unmistakable combination of awe and—in the middle of so much death—the simple elation of being still alive.

In bitter sorrow I thought of how different this night must be, to him, from each of those other nights.

 _Achilleus,_ I thought, _I am sorry I've left you to face this night alone._

I do not know how much time passed before I realized something else had changed.

The cold.

I still felt it. But now it was different. It hurt me no longer.

No longer did it seem an enemy, an assault from outside. The cold seemed natural, a part of me, as though it is the temperature that I am meant to be.

The smell of the burning faded and at last was gone.

And as I realized that, I saw the sky begin to change.

The view across the river had always been dark to me, a blackness of water indistinguishable from sky. Now light seemed to spread in the rosy hues of dawn. I saw with sudden clarity the land across the river: a hilly and rocky shore, crowned with a towering wall that rose higher into the sky than I could see. And directly opposite where I stood, a great gate in that wall, flanked with mighty carven lions—or beings that I interpreted as lions—that looked at least as tall as the walls of Troy.

All about me of a sudden there rose a low murmur of sound. It was the sound of people: quiet talking, the rustle of movement, here and there a whispered sob.

I turned around to face this shore—and found myself treading on the hand of a young woman who was sitting on the ground staring solemnly up at me. I flinched away to get off her hand, and only barely avoided falling over a middle-aged man sitting at my other side.

"I am very sorry," I said to the woman. "I did not mean to step on you."

She nodded, without speaking. I saw that she was sitting closely huddled with two others: a man probably a few years older than she, and a little girl perhaps six years old. The man had his arms protectively around the woman and the girl. All three of them gazed at me, in curiosity but with a look as though they were used to seeing people appear out of nothingness—as, perhaps, they were.

The man asked me, "Do you know when the ferry comes?"

"Yes," I said, "in the morning. Late morning, probably, though it's hard to tell around here."

The man nodded, and said, "Thank you."

I wondered what calamity or epidemic had brought this young family here together, but I didn't think it my place to ask them. So I just murmured "Excuse me," to them, and started to make my way along the suddenly crowded riverbank.

Like me, most of the people I saw kept as close as they could to the water's edge—trying to create some distance between themselves and the dark, rolling fog.

I thought there were probably at least three hundred people waiting for the ferry already, and it must be some while yet before Charon was due to arrive. I tried to remember what he'd said about how many passengers he considered a full load, and to estimate the ferryboat's capacity. He'd described one trip as having "only eighty" passengers, I recalled. Probably a good bet was that he could take around one hundred people per trip.

I wondered if this morning's passengers would make what Charon considered a "bumper crop" by the time the ferryman arrived.

I made my way through the crowds of confused, stunned, frightened, resigned, and irritated-looking people, on the lookout for anyone I recognized.

I was looking for our own men, of course. But I also wondered if I would run into any of the men I had killed.

Probably not, I thought; or not many of them, anyway. I assumed most of them were already burned and buried, and had already crossed the river. Presumably most of them didn't have companions who felt the need to go on a rampage of revenge before giving them their funerals.

I asked myself what I planned on saying to them, if I did encounter any of them. The appropriate formalities for addressing a man you have killed are not a question to which many of us give thought during our lives.

It did not seem right for me to tell them that I was sorry. That somehow seemed to imply that I had killed them by accident. It might be more insulting than if I said nothing at all.

Of course I'd intended their deaths. It was not in some fit of absent-mindedness that I'd been cleaving men's jaws, smashing in their heads, spearing them in the heart.

What else does a man intend when he goes into combat, but the death of his opponents?

I would be speaking the truth if I told them I was sorry that all of us were here. Sorry we had been at Troy to meet in battle at all. Sorry that any of us ever joined in this accursed war. But I was not certain that many of my opponents would wish to hear that from me.

As I was pondering this, I heard a man call out, "Patroklos!"

He seemed to have used a neutral sort of tone; the call of a casual acquaintance, neither friend nor enemy. So it was with some surprise that I recognized the man who was walking toward me: Sarpedon, lord of the Lykians and a son of Zeus—the most illustrious, probably, of the warriors I had killed.

I hoped that the trend of my thoughts was not showing on my face. The vivid memory came to me of bracing my foot on Sarpedon's chest as I worked to free my spear from him—and of about half of his chest rending open as I dragged the spearpoint from his heart.

"Sarpedon," I greeted him. I believe that my voice and my gaze were as steady as his. I asked him, "Have you been waiting here all this while?"

The son of Zeus shrugged. "I can't complain, much," he said. "My father sent Hermes to escort me here; he told me about the ferry schedule and the fog. So at least I knew what to expect."

I tried to act as though it were every day I listened to a man casually talking of his conversations with his half-brother the messenger god.

"Yes," I said. "That must have helped."

 _And that,_ I thought, _shows the treatment one can expect if one is a son of the king of the gods— instead of the mere mortal companion of the son of a fairly minor sea goddess._

It occurred to me I had better be grateful that Achilleus _is_ only Thetis' son. If he were a son of great Zeus, then he really _would_ be insufferable.

I asked Sarpedon, "You've only just had your funeral? I thought they were taking a ludicrously long time about mine. But if yours has only just finished, too, maybe they weren't so out of line."

"Well," said Sarpedon, "there was probably an extra reason for mine to be delayed. Hermes told me that Father sent Apollo to snatch my body out from the fighting and had it carried back to Lykia, for my people to give it burial there. The surprise of having their lord's body delivered to them out of the blue probably added some time to the process. They didn't have advance warning that they should begin their preparations."

I nodded, wondering what in the world to say to that.

Another man walked up to Sarpedon then and saved me from the need to come up with something to say.

I wondered if I had killed this man, too. He was younger and shorter than Sarpedon, and I didn't think I remembered him. But I suppose one can't expect to recognize _all_ of the men one has killed.

But he introduced himself with, "Patroklos? I'm Iphition son of Otrynteus. I think I was the first man Achilleus killed when he came back to the fighting after your death." Iphition grinned wryly and added, "What an honor for me."

He seemed to be taking this in good humor, so I cautiously attempted to answer him in like manner. "At least you'll be remembered," I pointed out.

"That's something, anyway," agreed Iphition.

These two meetings had gone well, but the pattern was about to change. A little way beyond us was a group of young men, sitting close by the water's edge. There was a flurry of movement among them, as one of their number jumped to his feet and several others of them leapt to try and restrain him. With an angry yell the young man broke free of his comrades and barged up to me.

Sarpedon and Iphition stepped away slightly with interested expressions on their faces, as though watching to see how I would respond to this encounter.

"Is it him?" the young man demanded of them. When Sarpedon nodded, the youth shoved at my chest and raged, "Are you satisfied yet, you monster? Have you finally had your fill of innocent blood, or are you still demanding more?"

His words seemed so bizarre I almost laughed at him. I am sure he would really have foamed at the mouth if I had laughed.

I said, "Young man, I have no idea what you're talking about. Calm yourself and make an effort to be comprehensible."

"You'd comprehend me if you could see any farther than your own selfish bloodlust!" He pointed to the other young men he'd been sitting with, most of them now on their feet and watching in apprehension. "I'm talking about the fact that your precious Achilleus sacrificed all twelve of us on your funeral pyre! He captured us, told us what he was going to do to us, made us sit through a whole night and a day waiting for it, and then he beheaded us, one by one, and threw our bodies on the pyre, while the rest of us were forced to watch!"

I had a frozen feeling as I stared at him and struggled to say something that could sound even halfway adequate.

"I see," I said evenly. I hoped that if I sounded calm, it might do something to calm him. "I am sorry for what he did to you. It is not anything I wished for, or that I asked of him."

"That's all you have to say?"

"What do you expect him to say?" Sarpedon stepped in now. "He's said he's sorry for you. What more can he do? We're all dead, and none of us is happy about it. Just leave it be."

"Leave it be?" the youth repeated. "All twelve of us have been murdered to make this bastard happy, and you want us to leave it be?"

Another of the young men strode up now and snapped at his comrade, "You wouldn't say we'd been murdered if we died in the battle. We're just as dead, Iolus, where's the difference?"

"In battle we wouldn't have had a night and a day to think about it! We wouldn't have had to see death stalking us on his friend's dripping sword!"

Iphition son of Otrynteus interposed, "So you had a night and a day to prepare yourself. So you should be all ready to face eternity. That's more than most of us can say."

Meanwhile the second youth yelled at the first, "Just because you were pissing yourself by the time Achilleus got to you, it doesn't mean all of us were!"

The first youth, Iolus, yelled back, "You were third! You didn't have to watch him behead ten others before he got to you!"

"I don't want to cross the river with you," the second youth declared. "You get on the ferry when it comes; I'll wait for a later trip."

He stalked back to where they'd been sitting and sat down again, glowering at the river. A few of his comrades sat down with him, while others still stood, looking at a loss for what to do or say.

I realized they were very young indeed. Iolus and the one who'd yelled at him looked to be the eldest of them, and neither could have been much more than eighteen. The youngest, one of those who was sitting, was probably closer to twelve years old.

To the outraged Iolus, I said, "I don't want to be dead any more than you do. Unfortunately I can't restore you to life, any more than I can restore myself."

Sarpedon interjected again, "What do you want from him, lad? He's said he didn't ask for the sacrifice. Is it his fault he never thought to tell Achilleus _not_ to do it? Who thinks of that sort of thing? I've never told my companions, 'Oh, by the way, if I happen to be killed, you don't need to sacrifice twelve noble sons of the Achaians for me.' I very much doubt they're up there

hunting Achaian youths for me—but if they are, is it my fault because I never told them not to?"

Young Iolus was in no mood for rational arguments. Glaring his hatred at me, he grated, "I want him to pay for our lives."

"Who's going to make him pay, Iolus?" jeered his comrade who didn't want to be on the same ferry trip with him. "You? That I'd like to see. He only killed thirty or so of our warriors before Hektor got him. You think you can take him down?"

Sarpedon delivered a pronouncement that was clearly intended to be the last word on the subject. "If you're old enough to go into battle, you should be old enough to accept the consequences. However you met your death, what matters now is how you face what is ahead. Stop worrying over who you think cheated you of your life, and give some thought to your readiness for what's to come."

Dismissing Iolus by turning his back on the youth, Sarpedon said to me, "I'm sorry about that. Kids."

"It's all right," I told him. "We have kids in the Achaian forces, too."

But Iolus was not ready to be dismissed. He demanded now, "What about Hektor?"

The son of Zeus turned a murderous look on him. "What _about_ Hektor?"

"I don't see him around here yet, do you? And we won't see him, because _his_ friend is still dragging Hektor's corpse around behind his chariot! You're telling me this bastard doesn't bear any of the responsibility for that, either?"

"What's he supposed to do?" Sarpedon shot back. "You think he can go back up there and tell Achilleus to send Hektor's body home? Grow up, Iolus. If you couldn't grow up in life, at least make an effort to do it in death."

 _Wonderful,_ I thought. _Thank you, Sarpedon, for making me feel even more guilty than I did already._

From the look of him, Iolus was likely to start shouting about how he would never have a chance to grow up, because Achilleus had slaughtered him. I had absolutely no desire to continue this conversation. So I said to Sarpedon and Iphition, "It's been good to speak with you. I wish all the best to both of you."

They nodded and replied with similar good wishes. Then I pushed past young Iolus and walked onward by his eleven comrades as swiftly as I could without either running or falling over any of the numerous other people on the shore.

I thought I knew precisely what Iolus would say of me—and perhaps what Sarpedon and Iphition might think of me, too—if I told them the truth of things.

 _Oh, well, actually, I did go back up there a couple of nights ago. I just forgot to mention Hektor when I was talking with Achilleus. Sorry about that._

As if I didn't already feel bad enough about Hektor's troubles, now I had these twelve youths to trouble my conscience.

 _Damn it, Achilleus! Have you completely gone out of your mind?_

His mother had said that if he died at Troy, he would be remembered forever. Didn't he give a damn about _how_ he was remembered? Wouldn't he rather be remembered as a hero than as a bloodthirsty barbarian?

Maybe he didn't care about that. Maybe of the two of us, I was the only one who cared what future generations thought of him. And I was gone.

I told myself I wasn't being fair to him. I told myself that he wasn't thinking straight, in his grief over me.

But it argued a fair amount of thought, to capture twelve men with the express purpose of sacrificing them, and to go through with the sacrifice a whole night and day later. I could hardly salve _this_ wound by telling myself Achilleus had acted in an unthinking burst of fury.

 _Achilleus,_ I wanted to yell at him, _how could you think I wanted this? What, in our twenty years together, could ever have made you think it was what I wanted?_

But, I realized, it wasn't about what I wanted. It wasn't about me at all. It was about Achilleus trying to shed so much blood that he could wash his grief away with it. It was about him trying to kill so many Trojans, that when he closed his eyes he saw their corpses, instead of mine.

 _One thing will never change about him,_ I thought. _He must always be the_ most _of whatever he is or does._

While I was still with him, he was the most generous, the most gracious to his captured opponents—and he was the warrior of the Achaians who regularly collected the largest ransoms for the return of his captives.

 _And now?_

 _Now he is the most fearsome of us all. The most bloodthirsty. The most pitiless._

Sarpedon and the young man who'd yelled at Iolus were right, of course. The twelve of them had gone into battle, and they had to accept that their youth did not spare them from the chance of being slain. I've no doubt that over the years I've killed plenty of men as young as any of those twelve. No warrior will last long if he tries to pull back from a killing stroke when he notices his opponent is particularly young.

But there seems an unbridgeable gulf between everyday killing in battle, and coldly sacrificing these young men as though they were bulls or horses.

Bulls and horses do not plead for their lives. They do not pray. They do not sob for their mothers.

I wondered why Thetis had not told me of Achilleus' plan to sacrifice these youths. There was a chance I could have induced him to spare them, if I'd pleaded with him for their lives. _That_ , I thought, I would not have forgotten to mention to him, if I had known of it before I went back.

Thetis might not have been aware of his intentions, I supposed. But I did not put much faith in that notion. I have often thought that where her son is concerned, Thetis is aware of just about everything.

She might simply not have thought it important enough to mention. She is a goddess, after all. The gods are notoriously indifferent to the life-and-death struggles of men, except for their favorites and those men who happen to be their relatives.

Or perhaps she didn't tell me of it because she _wanted_ those young men to die. Perhaps she too, like her son, wanted to spread suffering in vengeance for what her family had suffered and was still to suffer. Perhaps she felt that her son's pain and the pain she would soon feel on losing him demanded in turn the anguish of twelve more mothers within the walls of Troy.

Whatever was the reason for her silence, it was too late for them now.

With a chilly feeling that had nothing to do with the now natural cold of my new existence, I thought, _Perhaps it is not selfish of me to wish Achilleus dead._

I either had to hope that he would defy his mother's prediction by swiftly getting over me and living a normal life—or I had to hope he would soon be dead and here with me, before he destroyed too many other lives.

I had walked past the stretch of shoreline where the souls waiting for the ferry congregated. I could see only three people still ahead of me on the shore. A man and a woman were walking slowly, hand in hand, facing away from the rest of us. There seemed a quiet calm about them, as though they were simply out for an ordinary stroll together, somewhere in the world above.

The sight of them hit me with irresistible melancholy as I wished Achilleus and I could be walking together as they were.

Closer to me stood a wizened, elderly woman, who seemed as removed as that strolling couple from the anticipations and fears that gripped the rest of us. She had taken off her sandals and waded a little way into the river. There she stood, with her skirts hiked up to hold them out of the water, revealing legs near as spindly as those of some great waterbird. I could not guess what she was thinking as she gazed across the river—whether regrets kept her company, or hopes, or simply curiosity as to what awaited on the other shore.

She looked rapt enough in her own thoughts that it probably would not have disturbed her for me to walk past. But I decided not to chance interrupting her reverie. I turned and started back toward the crowd of souls.

It took no particular effort to spot Iolus and his comrades again. Two of the youths had apparently decided that horrible death or no horrible death, they weren't going to just sit around getting bored. The two of them were wrestling, in a match a great deal more animated than had been mine with Charon. A good number of the gathered souls were watching them. The two disappeared from my sight in the crowd, and there was a splash which told that one of them had borne the other down into the water. Both jumped back up a moment later, accompanied by the laughs and cheers of many of our buried citizens.

I grinned as I watched them, and I thought that youth does have its advantages. Bitter though it was for them to have been torn from their lives so young, at least their youth should give them the resilience to deal with this.

A realization suddenly occurred to me—a realization that I would do well not to share with Iolus and the rest of them.

I thought that those youths had reason to be grateful they were not in a far worse plight.

It was a dreadful death they had suffered, and an appalling day and night leading up to it. But they could be very much worse off.

They were lucky Achilleus had thrown their corpses on my pyre, instead of just casting them to the dogs. And they should spend their eternity offering thanks to Hades—or to whoever or whatever made the decisions in these cases—that their burning on my pyre was apparently considered close enough to count as a funeral.

I made my way back through the difficult-to-navigate channel between all the people I was trying not to run into or step on. The attention focused on the young men's wrestling match meant that I had no difficulty avoiding the notice of Iolus and his friends when I passed them. I was able to get by without listening to another round of claims that I was a bloodlusting monster responsible for their deaths.

I retraced my steps to the young family I had been standing next to when I first became one of the buried dead. I reasoned that since my base of operations had been near the ferry's arrival point, by finding that family again I should manage to get on the boat without having to wait until every last one of this crowd was on board.

As I traced my way back through the crowd, and then as I continued to wait, I watched curiously to see if I could witness any newly buried souls appearing in our midst.

I never fully saw it, though several times I almost did. The signs of such arrivals were clear enough. A brief, sudden flurry of movement somewhere in the crowd, perhaps a few exclamations, curses or apologies, and the shifting of people's positions as the newcomer was added into our waiting throng.

Try as I might, I was never looking directly at anyone when they arrived. So I could not satisfy my curiosity on whether we simply burst into visibility or faded in more slowly, like the fog we had just been.

I wondered if something in the mystical nature of all of this shielded from the eyes of others our transition from one state to the next.

At last there was activity on the other side of the river. One door of the monumental gate swung open inward, and a human-looking figure walked through it and started down the road. I was almost certain I recognized the burly form of Charon.

This belief was confirmed when he strode onto the ferryboat and with a mighty heave poled it into the water.

Excitement rippled through the ranks of our waiting passengers, as more and more noticed the ferry's approach. Many stood up or pushed forward as the vessel neared, although others were content to hold back and stay out of the way.

Normally I might also have been content to hold back and let others board before me. But on this morning, my pride made me determined to show certain of my fellow souls that I was a passenger of consequence.

As the vessel approached, I crouched down by the family beside me and said to them, "You should probably move back. The ferry usually beaches right about here."

My prediction was flawless. Moments after the young man with his wife and daughter scrambled out of the way, the ferryboat surged ashore on the spot where they had been sitting.

Ignoring the other shades clustered about his boat, Charon grinned triumphantly at the sight of me standing next to it. He exclaimed, "There, my friend, you see? I told you so!"

Charon could hardly have done more to highlight my status as an honored passenger if he and I had planned it together beforehand. He bowed to me and said grandly, "The first place aboard is yours, Lord Patroklos."

I smiled my thanks and gripped his shoulder for a moment before I strode past him to take my place at the ferry boat's far end.

I forced myself not to glance back at my fellow souls. I would have to content myself with imagining the outraged look with which I thought young Iolus would have greeted Charon's pronouncement. I didn't mind thinking that it might have startled Sarpedon and Iphition a bit, too.

Leaning on the ferry's railing, I grinned to myself as I thought, _For once the mere mortal companion of the son of a minor sea goddess takes precedence over a son of great Zeus._

Of course, I reminded myself, Sarpedon had his brother Hermes to keep him company for part of his wait upon this shore. The son of Zeus had no need to stave off desperation by starting up a dice tournament with Charon the ferryman.

Charon, meanwhile, was issuing instructions to the rest of the waiting passengers. "All right, you can get on, now. In an orderly fashion, mind! There's no need to shove; you'll all get your ride. It's going to take several trips. There'll be room for all of you eventually."

Unwillingly I thought then of the others—the hundreds of thousands of others. They must see Charon and his boat now, but presumably they did not hear the words he addressed to the buried souls. And I thought it likely that if the unburied dead could not hear or see Charon's interactions with us, then neither could we witness his interactions with them. Even now, I thought, Charon might be cursing them and chasing them off his boat.

And among those souls we saw only as the fog, Hektor was still waiting.

 _Not for much longer,_ I thought and prayed. _Please, gods, it must_ _not be for much longer!_

 _With my funeral now over, surely Achilleus will relent and return Hektor's body to the people of Troy?_

But Achilleus is not one to do anything sensibly, if there is a more absurdly extreme method of doing it.

I gazed at the opposite shore and forced all concerns and regrets from my mind. Breeze danced over us from the river, and I thought how different everything seems, now that I am buried.

For an unburied soul, there is nothing to feel. There is not the slightest movement of the air to break through the sensation of being surrounded by nothingness. And there had been nothing to see beyond darkness, grey sky and fog.

Now the rocks and hills of the farther shore broke that monotony, and the sky was now a heartening blue. I could see no sign of the sun itself—and I still have never seen it, here. But we had now at least the appearance of daylight; something besides that hope-destroying grey.

It even seemed a blessing to be jammed on the ferry with scores of other passengers. Just being near other people seemed wondrous, after those days of seeing only the ferryman and the fog.

I was not thinking of much as Charon's ferryboat set out across the Acheron. I leaned on the railing, and enjoyed the feeling of the breeze on my face and the sight of the miniature whitecaps churned as the ferryboat cleaved through the water.

Yet even thinking of nothing, I made a decision while I stood there, watching the river.

I saw suddenly the answer to a question I had not yet thought to ask.

I held back and tried to keep out of the way as my fellow shades disembarked. I had not a few curious stares from them as they passed me. But most seemed too rapt in their own concerns to trouble themselves much over why I might be waiting.

Young Iolus was on that trip—and he icily ignored me as he stomped past—along with four of his comrades. The others, I surmised, must have waited behind with the youth who had argued with Iolus.

Sarpedon and Iphition both passed me, Sarpedon with a startled frown and a nod to me and Iphition with a jaunty little wave.

The young family passed me, too, and the little girl smiled and waved at me.

I watched as my fellow souls started trooping along the grey paving stones of the smooth, broad road. Many walked resolutely. Some seemed to go unwillingly, their footsteps dragging, halting often to look back. A few broke down completely, collapsing sobbing to the road. Most of these were helped to their feet and urged along by other shades. One of them didn't move until Charon strode off his boat, whacked the man with his pole and snarled at him to move along. The man did move off then, with a broken, grief-stricken posture that was horrible to see.

Charon strolled back aboard, unconcerned by what I suppose must be just about a daily encounter for him. He studied me with a quizzical look.

"I am going to miss you, little shade," he told me. "I'll have to find someone else to play dice with me."

"I don't think you need worry about missing me yet," I told him. "I'm going to wait on this shore."

Charon's jaw dropped.

"You're what?" he demanded. "You're going to _wait_? What in Hades for? All that pestering me to get on my boat, and now you're not even going to move on?"

I thought that I hadn't done _that_ much pestering to get on his boat. Only in our first encounter, really; after that, I'd been pestering him for information. But I wasn't going to argue the point. I said, "I apologize about the pestering," and he waved that off with an impatient gesture. I told him, "I am going to wait for Achilleus. I'm not going anywhere without him. Whatever awaits us here, I want us to face it together."

The ferryman stared at me a moment longer. Then he shook his head and broke into a laugh.

"You are quite a fellow, son of Menoitios," was his judgement. "You are quite a fellow. I don't know whether to laugh at you or admire you."

"Please feel free to do both," I assured him, with a smile.

He shook his head again, and sighing, he gestured to the shore. "Will you step ashore, then, My Lord?" he said, with a rather disapproving look. "I need the space for travelers who are actually going somewhere."

I obeyed him, wondering if I had just sacrificed the friendship of the unpredictable ferryman.

I took care to stay out of the way while Charon ferried his other three rounds of passengers, lest by hanging about too obtrusively I might irritate him further. Even in my concern over the ferryman's possible annoyance, I could not keep from reveling in there suddenly being recognizable landscape to explore. I could range up and down the shore now and know I could find my way back without fearing I would lose the place where I began.

I made my way nearer the ferry point as Charon delivered his last passengers, and lingered near at hand in case he desired further speech. But apparently he did not. When the final passengers stepped from sight beyond the great inward-swinging gate, the ferryman followed them, striding back along the road without a glance in my direction.

I wondered if he might be on his way to report on my actions to Hades, or whoever was Charon's immediate superior, and to seek guidance on whether I could be allowed to remain here unhindered.

I had made my decision without even thinking about it, and announced it to Charon before I had pondered its potential implications. Now I realized that I did not even know if souls are permitted to linger on this shore outside Hades' gate.

 _Well_ , I told myself, _I will fight in whatever ways I can, to claim the right to linger here_.

I believe that my deeds in life should afford me at least minor hero status—at any rate, they should do so with the gods who are on our side. I told myself I would use that fact for whatever it may be worth. If the powers here attempted to remove me from this shore, I would throw myself on Athene's mercy and beg her intervention. I should, at least, be able to convince her that Achilleus and I deserve the right to meet our fate together.

Perhaps, I thought, I could convince Charon to take a message for me to the goddess of the grey eyes. His possible irritation notwithstanding, I thought he might do that for me in memory of our games of dice.

But it seems I did not require such intervention. No Underworldly guards arrived to haul me beyond Hades' gate. I saw no one through that afternoon, apart from the gradually increasing horde—whose arrivals I still could not witness—of souls gathering upon the fog-bound opposite shore.

The ferryman of Hades appeared on his usual schedule. He nodded at me as he passed to take his place on the ferry again, but he made no statement that my remaining here was against the Underworld's rules. And if I had offended him with my decision, he at least chose not to make an issue of it.

After all, as long as I remain here, he still has someone to play dice with. He demonstrated that this would be his policy at the end of that shift on duty, when he walked up to sit with me by the golden sandstone boulder I had chosen as my headquarters.

It was a strange experience that evening—and it is strange to me, still—to watch the night fall without any visible sunset, and with no eventual arrival of moon or stars. It is as though we dwell under eternal overcast. But there is no overcast to be seen. Only the blue sky, with never a cloud, that darkens each evening to purple and rose, and at last into black. The blackness is broken only by the vast braziers that blaze to either side of the gate. Those braziers apparently never need tending or relighting. They burn before the forepaws of the massive statues with the look of lion statues back in the world, except for their greater-than-usual number of legs.

I suppose if I am here for too many years, I will grow sickened by this weatherless, starless, moonless and sunless routine. But that day is not yet come. Though I endured only two days of it, I remember too well the madness of dwelling with no difference between night and day, with nothing but the grey fog.

I can endure a lot. Existence without weather, sun, moon or stars is not among the things that can break me.

In that first night on the farther shore I realized something I had not noticed in the days since my death. For the first time it occurred to me that I no longer sleep.

I was leaning back against my boulder when first I thought of it, as I gazed up into the curiously empty black sky. I remember thinking that the braziers at Hades' gates, bright though they burn, make this scene far less bright than the camp of the Achaians by night, with its myriad of torches and campfires. I thought that I should have no difficulty sleeping by the braziers' light, since I long ago trained myself to sleep in the light of our camp by night. And then, with a start of surprise, I realized that not once since I died, had I slept.

I had not slept, and I had felt no need to do so.

I thought it a pity when I realized that, and I think so still. Sleep, at least, would provide an additional means of wiling away the time.

But perhaps this is a place where I should not wish for sleep. I suppose it does not bear thinking of what dreams the Underworld might bring.

Late that next morning, in the midst of Charon's morning rounds, came a new experience in my existence on the farther shore.

I was watching, seated on my boulder, as another batch of souls trooped through Hades' gate. I noticed that, after the last of them had entered, the gate remained open. I started to wonder why that was. Then a slim young woman stepped out through the gate, bearing something gleaming in her hands.

The girl walked purposefully along the road to the ferry point. As she drew closer to me I saw that she was dressed with the subdued richness that suggests the slave of a noble house. I saw also that the object she bore before her was a bowl. And I thought I could see, from my perch up on the boulder, that the bowl was filled with blood.

To my surprise, the young woman halted at the base of my boulder. I scrambled down from it to greet her.

She bowed her head and held out the bowl to me. "For you, My Lord," she said. "From your offerings over the day past."

I thanked her and took the bowl. She seemed to be waiting for me to return the empty bowl, so I swiftly drank down the blood—and marveled again at its wondrous qualities.

It was not as intense, I suppose, as that first drink of blood when I was still fighting the cold as an unburied soul. But it was glorious: a rush of warmth and strength that seemed to bring me closer to sharing all those beautiful everyday sensations of being alive.

The girl favored me with a brief smile as I returned the bowl to her, then she started back toward the gate. With a feeling of regret I watched her leave.

She had a Lokrian accent, I thought; at least her speech sounded to me like that of Aias son of Oïleus and his followers.

The warm sympathy in her brown eyes and something about the way in which she coiled up her hair, both reminded me of my slave Iphis. I sighed as I thought of her, although I had scarcely thought of her once since I died.

 _I miss her,_ I thought. _I miss all of them._

The ferryman had been watching this interchange from his boat. Now he gave an impressed whistle.

"You have friends in a high place, son of Menoitios," he observed. "I've never known of anyone being granted their offerings when they're still outside the gate. Of course," he added, "I've known of precious few people who stopped outside the gate."

"Who was that girl?" I asked him.

He shrugged. "One of the handmaids of the court. Some of them are the daughters of Hades or other important personages. But most of them just catch the eye of some dignitary, when they arrive down here from above."

I nodded, and sighed again.

It is only to be expected, I suppose. But there seems a sour injustice to the fact that some girls' lot may be just the same in death as it is in life.

Is this what awaits women like Iphis, or even Briseis? Eternity of servitude, being passed around from one man to the next, all because they once chanced to strike some chieftain's fancy?

If Iphis and Briseis are lucky, perhaps they will not die until they are far into old age, when their days of catching eyes are past. They can be left alone to drift into forgetfulness—or not—of their own choosing.

I thought of Iphis, of her gentle touch and her soft laugh. I wished I had thought to give instructions that she should be freed upon my death. She and all of my women.

It is too late for that now, and I wonder what has become of them. They must have passed into Achilleus' household. And when he dies, I suppose Neoptolemus will inherit them—if they do not simply become prizes for our other chieftains to fight over.

That is a real possibility. Neoptolemus is young, and moreover he is not at Troy to defend his inheritance. Lords like Aias and Odysseus may well claim that as the greatest of the Achaians after Achilleus' death, all of his spoils of war should rightly belong to them.

Bitterly I told myself that the women might not fare any better if I _had_ thought to free them. Being officially free in the middle of an armed camp would not do them much good. I can hardly expect that the Myrmidons would devote a ship and its crew to escorting the women to their many various homes. Although Achilleus might have seen that done, if I had asked it of him.

I did not ask it of him. And now I have lost my chance to do anything for them at all.

Regret things though we may, our existence goes on regardless. That holds true in death as it does in life. And the oddest experiences swiftly become routine, when they recur day after numbingly repetitive day.

In my new routine, I spent each late morning watching Charon's latest passengers and chatting with the ferryman. Around that same time there usually came the daily offering of blood, most often brought to me by that same girl who reminds me so of Iphis. I soon learned that this girl's name is Eriopis and she hails from a village in Lokris, as I had guessed.

In the afternoon, fortified for a few hours by the blood, I generally went exploring. I wandered over every hill, along every stream, into every cave for miles to either side of Hades' great gate. Those hours were the best in these days for me.

While I am exploring, with blood newly within me, I can almost forget that I am not alive.

I never strayed too far. By evening I was back at my post in time for the ferryman's next journeys.

Then, when the day's ferrying was complete, Charon and I settled down to the inevitable game of dice. Eventually he would stroll back through the gate to wherever his home may be. And I was left to watch the night, to dream of Achilleus, and to wonder how long I have yet to wait.

One aspect of my new routine, I passionately wished were not a part of it.

Each morning and each evening, with every new round of passengers, I watched for the arrival of Prince Hektor, breaker of horses. Every day, each morning and each evening, he was not there.

Morning after morning, evening after evening, I put off doing something about it. Each time I told myself that beyond all doubt, the prince would be on the next trip. But when a week and more had passed, my conscience would let me put it off no longer.

That morning I met Charon when he stepped through the gate, and I walked with him along the road to the ferry.

"Charon," I greeted him, "I have a favor to ask of you." My words sounded as heavy to me as my spirits felt.

He gave me a dubious look, but he nodded. "Ask, little shade," he said.

"Will you take a message for me? I would like you to send to silver-footed Thetis. Ask her to go to Achilleus for me and entreat him to release Hektor's body. If she tells him, from me, that I wish the prince's body restored to his people—and that I am shamed to be the cause of such suffering to Hektor and his family—perhaps Achilleus may be moved to pity."

The ferryman nodded, but he said, "I don't think you need to worry about it. I believe the Olympians are already in motion. Iris the messenger visited Hektor last evening. She talked with him for some time, and after she left, the breaker of horses told me she'd brought him news that Olympos is acting on his behalf. Apparently she said they've already sent Thetis to Achilleus, and they're sending King Priam to him under the protection of Hermes, to entreat the body's return."

"It's about damned time!" I exclaimed. Suddenly embarrassed when I remembered who I was talking to, I added, "Sorry. I didn't mean to complain about the gods."

Charon gave a crooked grin. "Why shouldn't you? Everybody else does."

That same day, there came a break in my new routine. It was not a welcome one.

The morning and afternoon went by with no visit from Eriopis or any of her fellow handmaids. All that day passed, bringing to me no offering of blood.

I fought to quell the dread that rose up in me.

I told myself I had no cause for fear. There might be any number of innocuous reasons why Achilleus had missed a day in making offerings to me—chief among them that he had simply been too busy fighting.

And if the explanation was the one that sprang up first of all my fears—that there had been no offering to me because Achilleus had been killed—what need had I to dread that? Was not an early reunion with him the very thing I wanted?

But the next morning, and the mornings that followed, Eriopis appeared again with the bowl of blood, just as though the routine was never broken.

For those next few days Charon's assurances quieted my conscience. But again morning after morning and evening after evening passed, bringing with them no sight or word of Hektor.

A week and some days had gone by again when I next confronted the question.

On the ferryman's arrival that evening, I asked, "If Hektor is not aboard this evening, will you ask him of it for me? Ask if he has heard anything more from Olympos. Have they already sent their embassies to Achilleus? Does he still retain the body, against their specific instructions?"

When Charon's shift had ended, he sat down to give me his report.

"That is not a happy fellow over there," Charon observed. "He stands up to it well. He is a patient man, and a stubborn one. Just like you," he added, with a grin. "But he is not happy. I think he may wear down a new channel for the river, with the amount of pacing he's doing."

"Has he heard anything?" I asked.

Charon nodded. "Iris came to him again a few days ago, to tell him what's going on. Achilleus did return the body as the gods instructed; he gave it to Priam. The problem's with Hektor's own people, now. Apparently they've decided to hold his funeral ceremonies for nine days before they burn him."

"What?" I shouted. "Nine days? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard! Charon, are living people just completely mad?"

He smirked and said, "I've often thought so."

"Nine days," I repeated, shaking my head. "They cannot know what they do to us with this sort of nonsense. Let them perform their ceremonies for as long as brings comfort to them, but by all the gods, let them burn and bury the ones they love, first! Some deity needs to go to the living and tell them that. The gods should stop them from hurting their loved ones with the deeds intended to honor them."

"You can make that your mission," suggested Charon, "when you are enshrined as a deity."

I eyed the ferryman sharply, unable to tell if he was pulling my leg or not. "When I am enshrined as a deity? You are an optimistic sort of god, master ferryman. I think the only thing I'm ever likely to be deity of is this particular stretch of sand." I sighed and added, "Just as Hektor is likely to be deity of the bit of shore opposite. Poor bastard. I thought I had it rough, sitting over there for two days!"

I tried to add up the days in my head, then I gave up and asked Charon, "How many days are left of the nine?"

"Only one, I think," he answered. "The prince's waiting should be nearly over."

I will not pretend that in that night, the next day, and the next night that followed, my waiting was anything like as painful as Hektor's must have been. Nonetheless the tension drew in on me, like the fog upon the other shore.

I thought of Hektor waiting there. I pictured the funeral ceremonies that must even now be taking place in windy Troy. With all my being I willed those who loved Hektor to bring those ceremonies swiftly to their end.

On the morning when I thought the funeral must finally be over, I strained my sight to make out the features of those on the distant shore. Feverishly I hoped to see Hektor among them. But my sight still disappointed me. The opposite shore was too far. I could still only wait to learn if Hektor's waiting was ended.

Charon's first ferry trip that morning answered that question.

First of all the souls to disembark when the ferry surged to the shore was Prince Hektor, breaker of horses.

I had been sitting leaned back against my boulder, but when I saw Hektor, I stood. He saw me at once and nodded to me, his face carefully empty of expression. I nodded back.

The prince made no move to start along the road. I lost sight of him for a few moments amid the crowds now making their way toward Hades' gate. When I saw Hektor again he had not moved from where he had first stepped upon the shore. He had turned and was gazing up river. When all the crowd had passed along the road, the Prince of Troy walked a few steady and deliberate paces to the next boulder upstream from the ferry point. There, by the grey and black granite boulder that gleamed in the glance of the daylight, he sat down, leaning against the rock and gazing out at the river.

I watched this without much surprise; with only a feeling of resignation.

 _Of course,_ I thought, _this is the Underworld. What else could one expect of it?_

I don't know if Charon raised any objections to Hektor's choice as he had to mine. But when he spoke to me of it, he seemed to feel only amusement. Grinning evilly as he looked over at Hektor by his boulder, he said to me, "Looks like you've got a comrade to wait with you. I'm sure the two of you will find a great deal to talk about."

I reasoned that the awkwardness of things would only grow more absurd the longer I waited to speak with Hektor. So when Charon and the last of his passengers departed, I walked over to my new neighbor and sat down a respectful distance from him.

The answer to the question I asked was obvious. But I could think of nothing else to say. I asked Hektor, "You are waiting for someone?"

He turned his head and gazed at me with that same expressionless look. "Yes," he answered. Just when I thought that might be all he was going to say, he continued. "I am waiting for my wife."

I could not think of much to say to that. In our present circumstances, it hardly seems right to wish him a speedy reunion with her.

Prince Hektor still permitted no expression to touch his face or his voice. He asked me, "You are waiting for him?"

"Yes," I said.

Hektor nodded once and turned away from me, to stare again at the river.

I told myself that trying to converse any further was ridiculous. I stood up and walked back to my own boulder.

I thought, _This will be a jolly existence_.

 _At least we will not drive each other mad with excessive talking._

 _It could be worse,_ I told myself. _I could be sitting on this shore with Nestor. Then the wait for Achilleus really_ would _seem like eternity._

That evening when Charon's duties ended he strolled up to me, tossing his bag of dice in his hand. The ferryman asked, "What say you, son of Menoitios? Shall we invite Prince Hektor to join us in our game?"

I could not refuse; not without seeming as ungracious as possible. I said, "Of course," although I fear I spoke with little enthusiasm.

I followed at Charon's heels as the ferryman went to make the invitation to Hektor. Thus I was there to witness the first flicker of expression I had seen on the prince's face since he arrived on this shore. The breaker of horses raised his eyebrows. With the faintest quirk of a smile he said, "Thank you. Why not?"

Over the course of that evening and many evenings to come, I learned that Prince Hektor knows dice games far more complex and varied than the highest-score-wins tournaments Charon and I had been playing.

That is a blessing. In dark moments it seems to me that the three of us will play dice together for the rest of time.

I have no right to complain about it, of course. No one is forcing me to sit here. If I am so damned tired of playing dice, I can walk through that gate at any time I choose.

I remind myself of that. Then facing untold thousands of dice games does not seem so grim to me, after all.

On the first morning Hektor and I shared our vigil, two handmaidens arrived bearing offerings of blood. Eriopis, as usual, came to me. The second—golden-haired Rhene, who on some mornings had brought me my offering—walked to Hektor, breaker of horses, and proffered the bowl to him.

By unspoken consent Hektor and I divided the shore between us. The territory upstream of Hades' gate was his; downstream, was mine. Every day after we had downed our blood, each of us wandered off in his own direction to explore. Before many days passed, I am sure there was little left within range that we had not explored multiple times already. Each of us, without fail, returned to the road in time to watch Charon's evening ferry.

Five days after Hektor crossed the river there came a morning when blood arrived for neither of us.

As the day dragged on, I avoided looking at Hektor. I knew I would see about him the same fearful tension that was closing in upon me. Our game with Charon that evening was far shorter than usual. The prince and I could barely bring ourselves to speak. We stared at the dice as though they were augurs that could reveal all that happened in the world above.

The next morn's ferry brought several of the Trojan warriors, and several also of our own men. There developed two miniature assemblies of our opposing camps. Hektor's comrades clustered around his boulder. Across the road, the Achaians gathered around mine.

I am sure the Trojans gave Hektor the same tidings that our men gave me: of a day of heavier than usual fighting, up against the wall of Troy. But the day had ended, still, in the same way that ten years had been eaten away: with the walls unbreached, and with nothing changed except that hundreds more men on both sides were slain.

No word came to me that Achilleus was among the dead. And with the city still resisting, those for whom Hektor most feared should be safe as well.

And ere that morn was gone, Eriopis and Rhene appeared, again bringing offerings of blood for both of us.

Three days, I believe, after the day of no blood, came a day when I received blood and Hektor did not.

Eriopis came alone that day. As she walked up to me she kept casting nervous, embarrassed glances at Hektor. The breaker of horses could not have failed to notice what was going on. But he leaned against his boulder, stolidly attempting to look like he was ignoring us.

"Nothing for him today?" I asked, as I took the blood.

"Nothing," Eriopis whispered.

"Damn."

 _You can still drink it all,_ I told myself. _Nothing is stopping you. No one expects you not to drink it._

 _Nothing is stopping you except the fact that if you did, you would thoroughly loathe yourself._

I sighed and drank half of the bowl's contents, or as near to that as I could manage. It was a far greater challenge than I'd dreamed it would be to stop myself before draining that blood to its dregs. Then I said to Eriopis, "Please wait a little longer. This will not take long, I promise."

As I walked, I thought the girls had excellent poise not to spill any of this stuff. I was glad I had only a half a bowl of it to carry. Just managing not to spill any myself, I crossed the road and went over to Hektor.

"Will you finish this?" I asked him.

He frowned at first, as though he intended to refuse. Then he bit his lip. Solemnly, he nodded.

"Thank you," he said steadily. Prince Hektor took the bowl and drank.

He handed the bowl back to me, and I made haste to return it to Eriopis. Then, just as we did on most days, we set out in our separate directions, each to wander our own stretch of shore.

Four days after that, our fates were reversed.

This time it was my turn. This time I tried my best not to look at them as Rhene of the golden tresses carried her bowl to Hektor. I tried not to think about it, not to expect anything from him. But it was still a relief when the breaker of horses walked up to me and held out his half-full bowl.

"Will you finish this for me?" he offered.

I thanked him and drank it down. He said then, "Please excuse me while I return this." A few moments later he was back by my side.

The Prince of Troy asked me, "May I have permission to lean against your boulder?"

I had to smile at that. "Please," I invited him, and gestured to the boulder as grandly as I could.

We stood there, our backs to the gold sandstone, both of us gazing at the water.

Hektor asked, "When the offerings don't come—do you fear the worst?"

"Yes," I answered. "Every time. I always think the offering isn't here because—because the people who've been giving it are over there, now, in the fog." I sighed and went on, "But then the next day the offerings always come again. So far."

He nodded, and said, "The people most likely to be giving you your offerings are all warriors, aren't they? It makes sense that they might miss an offering now and then, on the days when there's heavy fighting. Mine—my people all should be safe in the city. So when the offering doesn't come, I think that the city has fallen."

Hektor was silent a moment. With a great sigh he seemed to will himself back to courage.

"But the city has not fallen," he said. "And none of our men I've seen here have told me of the deaths of my parents. Or my wife."

Reluctantly I said, "You know—I keep reminding myself of this. Someday, if they live long enough, the offerings may stop. Or they may come very far apart, maybe just a few times each year."

I almost stopped speaking then. But I did not wish to pass up the chance to speak of this—to speak of it with someone who might be thinking and feeling the same things that I was.

I went on, "And it makes me angry to think of that. Angry and jealous. But … but we have to be happy for them, if it comes to that. Don't we? We have to be happy for them, that they've been able to move on. Instead of being jealous of them for being alive."

"Yes," Hektor said grimly. "I suppose we do have to be happy for them. But it is good to be remembered."

With the smile of one facing a battle, the breaker of horses said to me, "So we must both remind each other of this conversation—if it comes to that. You and I must remind each other that we must be happy for them. Even if we cannot be happy for ourselves."

I smiled in answer. "It is a bargain," I said to him.

That was one of the lengthiest conversations Hektor and I have had.

Both of us are men who know how to keep our own counsel. And strange indeed would be a conversation on the topics each of us holds most dear.

Hektor, I think, feels it would be disrespect to his wife to speak of her to me. That feeling I can well understand, for I am a comrade of the men who may yet kill her or take her into captivity. And it would be awkward to say the least, for me to speak to Hektor of the man who killed him.

So for the most part we have kept our silence, sitting at our boulders to either side of the road and watching the river. Most of the conversations the breaker of horses and I have had, have been on more-or-less geographical topics: reminiscences by first one of us, and then the other, on the places back there in the world that we would most like to see again.

Dwelling on such thoughts may bring us perilously close to despair. But I am sure Hektor speaks of these things for the same reason as I do. Recreating those places word by word, in as vivid detail as we can—it seems a way to fix the world and our lives more firmly in our minds. It seems a way we can fight against forgetfulness, against letting our memories drift away from us into the fog across the Acheron.

We still play dice every evening with Charon. He mournfully swears his existence will be a dull one when both of us finally pass through Hades' gate.

On most mornings both of us still receive our offerings. But if one has blood on a day when the other does not, it is without question now that we share it.

Fortunately, the days when neither of us has blood have so far been few.

With the blood drunk down, then we have energy and breath of life enough to partake of more active entertainments than watching the river or dreaming of our lives. It is no easy task to run a footrace when you've got no blood in you. Charon grumbles that he will someday have to answer to the court for these unprecedented delays in the rate with which the dead are passing into Hades' realm. Each day now, scores of the newly ferried souls stop on the shore to watch our races, wrestling and spear-throwing contests. (The spears, of course, are provided to us from who-knows-where by Charon.)

As close as we can reckon, it is near to one hundred and twenty days since Hektor's leaf-bladed spear took my life, there before the walls of Troy. We did not think to start actively keeping track until two weeks or so into our shared vigil. Now each evening when Charon leaves, at the close of another round of dice games, we take turns carving a hatch mark into one of the rocks on the riverbank. We cut the marks with one of our spears. We have no dread of damaging the blade, for there is nothing and no one here that we seek to hunt or kill.

This evening, when Charon had taken his departure and I had carved our latest hatch mark, I chanced to glance at Prince Hektor. I saw him gazing at the rock with its record of our days, and I saw a tear gleam upon his cheek.

Courtesy perhaps constrained me to ignore this. Instead, on an impulse, I crossed to him, and I clasped his shoulder.

"She will be with you again," I said to him.

He nodded. The smallest hint of a smile touched his face, though it could not take the sorrow from his eyes.

He answered me, "He will be with you again."

I sat down again, by his side. Together we watched the river.

29


End file.
